117 



The accessions to our knowledge respecting the oolitic series, 

 from the Portland strata down to the new-red-sandstone, have also 

 been considerable during the past year. Mr. Lonsdale, I am happy 

 to say, has presented us with an account of his researches on that 

 important tract in the centre of England, included between the 

 chalk near Calne and the vicinity of Bath ; the maps relating to 

 which I had the pleasure of laying before you at the last Anni- 

 versary. This valuable work, one of the most accurate perhaps yet 

 produced in this country, may be considered as a more advanced 

 stage of the inquiries respecting the oolitic tracts, begun so ably 

 by Mr. Smith, and continued in Mr. Conybeare's Outlines : and it 

 carries on the transverse section of England, from the vicinity of 

 Bristol, which had already been illustrated by Mr. Conybeare and 

 Dr. Buckland, in their admirable Memoir published in the first part 

 of our Second Series. 



The work upon the Coast of Yorkshire, announced by Mr. Phillips 

 of the York Institution *, will throw light upon a still lower portion 

 of our oolites ; and elucidate especially that remarkable group of 

 strata which includes a series of coal-measures in connection with 

 the lower oolite. It is certainly much to be desired that all our 

 coasts were thus examined and distinctly represented ; such illus- 

 tration being valuable, not only in topographical history, but as 

 affording the best evidence as to the succession of our strata, and 

 the greatest facility to the study of them, both by foreigners and 

 our own countrymen. 



The complex and important groups which intervene between the 

 Oolites and the Transition rocks, have been illustrated during the 

 past year by Professor Sedgwick, — separately in England, and con- 

 jointly with Mr. Murchison, in the Isle of Arran and the north of 

 Scotland. 



Mr. Sedgwick's Memoir on the magnesian limestone, and the 

 lower part of the new red-sandstone, in the north of England, is 

 unquestionably one of the most valuable contributions we have 

 hitherto received ; not only supplying a desideratum of the greatest 

 interest in our local Geology, but placing in a just light the difficult 

 and obscure relations of that extensive series of beds which it de- 

 scribes. Nothing is now wanting, but the acquisition of good 

 maps by the extension of the Ordnance Survey, to complete our 

 geological acquaintance with the large portion of England de- 

 scribed in this Memoir. 



In Mr. Sedgwick's Paper, the new-red-sandstone is considered as 

 constituting one great complex formation, between the lias and the 

 coal-measures, with two calcareous formations subordinate to it; 

 one (the muschel-kalkstein), in the upper part, which has not yet 

 been discovered in our country ; the other (the magnesian lime- 

 stone), in the lower part, which the author has made especially the 

 object of his researches. 



* This work has been published since this Paper was put to the press, and 

 fully justifies the expectations entertained respecting it. 



