200 



as one of those complete middle terms of comparison, by help of 

 which the disjointed fragments of a former world may in imagina- 

 tion be reunited. Respecting the perplexing phenomena of the Crag 

 beds on the coast of Suffolk, we are greatly deficient in information. 

 The accounts of all our tertiary strata, however excellent at the 

 time they were written, must be entirely remodelled. Even the his- 

 tory of the oolitic series (the boast of English geology, and the 

 type to which foreign naturalists are attempting to conform some 

 of their own secondary rocks) is defective. We know, in admirable 

 detail, the formations near Bath. On the coast of Yorkshire Mr. 

 Phillips has left us nothing to desire. But a promised Memoir on 

 the beautiful phaenomena near Weymouth, after many years of ex- 

 pectation, is still unwritten : and a detailed transverse section through 

 the wide oolitic beds of Northamptonshire is among our most im- 

 portant desiderata. 



Something is left to be done in illustrating the upper part of the 

 new red sandstone. It is here that the poverty of our secondary 

 rocks offers a striking contrast to the riches of the coeval rocks 

 on the flanks of the Vosges and on the banks of the Neckar ; and 

 this very poverty makes every scrap of information, whether derived 

 from mineralogical or organic characters, of importance in assisting 

 us to complete this broken part of our secondary series. 



Even the history of our coal formations is not yet perfect. The 

 association of the coal and mountain limestone of Northumberland 

 has not been well explained. The great corresponding deposits 

 of Cumberland are undescribed : nor does it appear in our pub- 

 lished works, that coal is found alternating in the North of England 

 with all parts of the mountain limestone group ; and that beds of 

 coal are worked in several places, resting upon transition slate, and 

 surmounted by the whole limestone series. More than half of 

 Ireland is a blank on our geological maps ; and on many of the 

 transition districts of England our information is lamentably de- 

 fective. 



The study of our older deposits is indeed difficult and toilsome, 

 and unenlivened with the frequent occurrence of organic bodies. 

 But no country, hitherto described, shows a more splendid series of 

 phaenomena to illustrate the intrusive agency of crystalline rocks ; 

 and to exhibit the great successive internal movements by which 

 our continents have been elevated, and brought under those laws 

 of degradation which have fashioned them into their present forms. 

 In these investigations there is still a rich spoil ready for any one 

 who will have the courage to stretch out his hands to grasp it. A 

 part of it I have myself gathered among the mountains of Cumber- 

 land, with no small labour; which I shall count for gain, if I may 

 be permitted, hereafter, to lay it up in the storehouse of this Society. 



Leaving, however, the subject of British geology, 1 must call 

 your attention to those Papers which, during our sessions of the 

 past year, have described the general phaenomena of secondary 

 rocks. — On the secondary formations of the Netherlands we have 

 heard some interesting remarks in a recent Paper by Dr. Fitton, 



