385 



great energy of mind/ has been endeavouring, by lectures given in 

 Philadelphia, to rouse the educated classes of the southern states 

 to a sense of the importance of modern geology. Having suc- 

 ceeded in creating a love for the subject, Mr. Featherstonhaugh has 

 followed up his first labours by the publication of a new monthly 

 work *, the leading object of which is to propagate the principles of 

 modern geology. A few numbers only of this useful work have yet 

 appeared, and I refer you to their contents for several spirited de- 

 scriptions of parts of the United States, and their peculiar organic 

 remains; whilst I earnestly hope that this effort of an unassisted 

 Fellow of our Society, who is labouring to implant in that great 

 country of our kinsmen the principles and nomenclature of the 

 science, as adopted in England, will meet with general encourage- 

 ment. 



Lastly, I have the pleasure to inform you that a new Part of our 

 Transactions will shortly be laid upon the table ; and I trust this 

 publication, from the quantity of new and important matter which it 

 contains, will support the reputation to which the Transactions of 

 the Geological Society have so justly attained f. 



These volumes must ever be valuable as the true records of our 

 scientific progress. But great as may have been the acquirements of 

 their authors, few indeed are the memoirs which have been com- 

 pleted without the aid of other distinguished Fellows of the Society, 

 who, each in the branch of natural knowledge for which he stands 

 pre-eminent, comes to the assistance of his wandering associate, and 

 enables him to clothe his memoir in an appropriate dress. For where 

 is the working geologist who, unassisted, can unravel the delicate 

 and obscure complications of fossil organic structure? Do his fossil 

 shells require to be identified, — has he not the assistance of a Sowerby? 

 and if these types of former states of nature call for a comparison 

 with modern species, — is not a Broderip ever prompt in affording him 

 the results of experienced discernment, and in unfolding the riches 

 of his unrivalled cabinets ? If he meet with difficulties in the deter- 

 mination of mammalia, — are not a Mantell and a Clift at hand to 

 explain their relations and define their characters? Or if bewildered 

 in the obscurity of fossil vegetation, — is he not assisted by a Lindley ? 

 Have not, in fine, a Turner, a Prout, a Faraday, and a Herschel, 

 been willing instruments in enabling him to explain those laws of 



* The Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science. — 

 Philadelphia. 



■f This Part contains the following Memoirs : 



Lonsdale on the Oo'itic District of Bath. 



Murchison on the Fossil Fox found near CEningen, and the Deposit in 

 which it was imbedded. 



Mantell, Osteological Description of the Fox. 



Herschel on the Astronomical Causes which influence Geological 

 Phenomena. 



Sedgwick and Murchison on the Eastern Alps. 



