290 



Physical Structure of the Island of Juan Fernandez, as the im- 

 portant parts of their contents must be still fresh in your recollec- 

 tion, and they offer no materials from which I can draw any general, 

 theoretical conclusions. 



Connected with the primary and secondary formations of Conti- 

 nental Europe, several communications have come before the Society. 

 Of these 1 must first notice two short memoirs, accompanying geo- 

 logical maps of Moravia and Transylvania, by Doctor Boue' ; and a 

 longer and more elaborate memoir, by the same author, explanatory 

 of a geological map of Austria and Southern Bavaria. I need not 

 inform the gentlemen whom I am addressing — that this indefatigable 

 observer has spent many years of his life in disentangling the com- 

 plex phenomena of the Alps — that he has extended his surveys 

 through Moravia and the great Carpathian chain, to the province of 

 Transylvania — that combining his own observations with those of 

 De Lill, Beudant, and others, who had in part preceded him, he 

 has been enabled to exhibit the geological relations of this vast 

 region, and through the intervention of common deposits to bring 

 it into accordance with the system of the Austrian Alps. It is ob- 

 viously impossible for me to offer any analysis of such labours, of 

 which the three maps presented to the Society are most honourable 

 records. 



It would be equally impossible to give, with any effect, an abstract 

 of the several memoirs of Dr. Boue j for they bring before us so many 

 facts, and in so condensed a form, that they seem to contain mate- 

 rials hereafter to be expanded into works far beyond the limits of any 

 ordinary communication. On these subjects I must therefore be 

 content to refer you to the printed analysis of his papers, and to his 

 various essays, published during the past year, on the structure of 

 the Alpine and Carpathian chains*. 



In elucidation of the geology of the Eastern Alps, a paper was also 

 presented to the Society, during the past year, by Mr. Murchison 

 and myself. Our object was, by help of a transverse section along 

 the line where we crossed the Chain, to bring together such facts 

 as were seen by ourselves, and appeared of any real importance : and, 

 connecting them with other facts, partly derived from oral informa- 

 tion, and partly from a number of scattered memoirs little known in 

 this country, to give such an outline of the general structure of 

 the whole chain, as should be intelligible to an English reader. 



As our Memoir has been published, I should hardly have alluded to 

 it, had not our views been partially misrepresented j and, what is of 

 vastly more importance, had we not differed from Dr. Boue' in the 

 interpretation of some very singular, and we think not unimportant, 

 phenomena. 



During the past year, Mr. Murchison again visited the same region; 

 and the results of his investigations have been laid before us in an 

 elaborate paper, which I am now called upon to notice. In doing 



* See especially several elaborate articles on these subjects, published by 

 Dr. Boue, during the past year, in the Journal de Geologic 



