384. 



composed of a dark-coloured, porphyritic trachyte*. The volcanic 

 rocks of this region are shown to be of considerable antiquity, because 

 the secondary deposits rest upon them in undisturbed positions, the 

 transition formations having alone been dislocated. 



Of the memoirs read before the Geological Society of France, you 

 will find a clear account in the annual reports of its Secretary, Dr. 

 Boue ; — those of Count Munster and M. Deshayes on Organic Re- 

 mains, of Dufrenoy upon the Pyrenees, of Botta upon Mount Lebanon, 

 and of De Boblaye upon Greece, are specially entitled to your at- 

 tention. The last mentioned of these works might be cited as cor- 

 roborating an opinion entertained by Professor Sedgwick and myself, 

 —that in parts of Eastern Europe, there exists a series of beds inter- 

 mediate between the chalk and those deposits, to which the name 

 of tertiary has been commonly assigned. M. de Boblaye, after de- 

 scribing the various primary and secondary rocks of which the Morea 

 is composed, points out the existence of coarse conglomerates and 

 clays, posterior to the green-sand and chalk, and elevated to heights 

 varying from 2,400 to 4,500 feet above the sea, and he regards them 

 as occupying the oldest stage of the tertiary series. These deposits, 

 so little known in the West of Europe, seem to occupy the same 

 geological horizon as the formations of Gosau ; whilst the other 

 groups of true tertiary deposits, which succeed at lower levels on the 

 flanks of the Eastern Alps, have also their analogues in corresponding 

 younger deposits on the shores of the Morea. 



It must indeed be gratifying to all whom I now address, to note 

 the rapid progress of this infant society of the metropolis of France, 

 founded as it has been upon the model of our own ; and you will 

 hear with increased satisfaction, that its zealous and indefatigable 

 Secretary, Dr. Boue, to whom so much of its success is due, has 

 announced the early publication of a first volume of their Trans- 

 actionsf . 



Having glanced at the strides which geology has made on the con- 

 tinent of Europe, I would say a few words on the increasing taste for 

 the science, which has lately appeared in the United States of Ame- 

 rica. You have long gathered instruction from the periodical work 

 of Professor Silliman, whom we have to thank for many valuable me- 

 moirs, particularly on the mineralogical structure of his country : 

 but within the past year one of our own body, a man possessed of 



* According to M. de Humboldt this rock is undistinguishable from 

 ■ that of Pinchincha, in the Cordillera of the Andes. 



f This volume will contain the Memoirs of Von Lill, on Gallicia; 

 Botta, on Mount Lebanon ; Bertrand Geslin, on Val d'Arno ; Pareto, 

 on the Sub-Apennine Hills; Steininger, on the Transition Fossils of the 

 Eifel ; and De Grateloup, on the Tertiary Fossils of Dax. The meeting 

 of French Geologists, which took place last summer at Beauvais, has af. 

 forded fresh proof of the zeal which actuates our neighbours, and particu- 

 larly that excellent observer M, Graves of Beauvais. 



