357 



Address to the Geological Society, delivered at the Anniversary, on 

 the \9th of February, 1836, by Charles Lyell, Jun., Esq., 

 President. 



Gentlemen, 



You -have learnt this morning, from the annual report of the 

 Council, that the financial affairs of the Society continue to flourish ; 

 and that since our last anniversary we have published the conclud- 

 ing part of the third volume of our Transactions, and the first part 

 of a fourth volume. Another part of the same volume is nearly 

 ready, and the Council have directed their thoughts seriously to the 

 means of preventing, in future, the accumulation of such heavy 

 arrears of vmpublished memoirs. The delays have hitherto arisen 

 from a desire to print all papers containing original and valuable 

 matter in the order in which they were presented ; but many have 

 been sent to us in so unfinished a state as to retard the printing of 

 the rest, and, as the science advances rapidly, and new facts pour in 

 daily, the authors even of the most finished memoirs soon require 

 to make additions and corrections, and thus the evil is continually 

 augmenting. The Council have therefore resolved, for the future, 

 to print at once those memoirs which are in the most complete 

 state, without waiting for others which are imperfect. 



During the last year there have been elected into the Society 45 

 new members, and we have lost 4 by resignations and 12 by deaths. 

 Among the names of the deceased Fellows I may mention those of 

 Mr, Goodhall and Mr. Mammatt as having zealously contributed to 

 the progress of our science. Mr. Goodhall was an active collector 

 of British fossils, and to his labours we owe many valuable contri- 

 butions to our museum, and the discovery of shells of new species 

 figured in Sowerby's Mineral Conchology. The work of Mr. Mam- 

 matt, on the Coal-field of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, has been honourably 

 mentioned by my predecessor Mr. Greenough, in his last anniver- 

 sary speech. Mr. Mammatt had superintended, for more than thirty 

 years, the working of extensive coal mines, and kept a record of the 

 details of various sections with which he was practically acquainted. 

 To these documents be has added several plans of remarkable faults 

 which intersect the carboniferous strata of Leicestershire. He has 

 shown that on one side of one of these faults the beds rise to the 

 height of 500 feet above the corresponding beds on the other side, 

 yet the mass of uplifted strata does not project above the gene- 

 ral level of the country. He infers, therefore, that it has been 

 removed by denudation, and that the wreck of it alone now 

 remains on the surface in the shape of sand and boulders. Mr. 

 Conybeare has drawn similar conclusions respecting analogous phse- 

 nomena observed on a still greater scale in the Newcastle coal di- 

 strict.* Whether the denudation was sudden or gradual, or whether 

 the faults were produced at once or were the result of a series of 



* Report on Geology to the British Association, 1832. 



