,XX PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



sliould extend tlieir researches over wider areas, with the A'iew of 

 eUciting laws of greater generaUty than those which more Hmited 

 regions could afford. Few palseoutologists are so well qualified for 

 this difficult task as M. de Verneuil. His accurate and comprehen- 

 sive palseontological knowledge has enabled him at once to embrace 

 the facts supplied by a new region, and to compare them with those 

 of other regions with which he was previously acquainted. Every 

 geologist is aware of his valuable palaeontological contributions to 

 your own able and elaborate work on the geology of Russia. He has 

 more recently devoted himself to an examination of the palaeozoic 

 rocks of North America, and to a careful coordination of those 

 rocks and tlieir organic contents with their equivalents in Western 

 Europe, — a task which he has executed to the great and general 

 satisfaction of geologists on both sides of the Atlantic. It is in 

 great works like this, which are only to be executed by men pos- 

 sessing the high qualifications of M. de Verneuil, that the paleeonto- 

 logist rises above the minuter details of his science to the contem- 

 plation and establishment of those profoundly interesting laws which 

 the Almighty Creator of the universe has appointed for the distri- 

 bution and government of organic life on the surface of our planet 

 from the earliest periods of geological record. During the last five 

 years M. de Verneuil has been pursuing his geological researches, 

 with characteristic energy, among the rugged sierras of Spain, — a 

 country likely to prove as interesting to the geologist as it has so 

 long been to the historian and the artist. It is to him that we owe 

 the first outline of a geological map of that country, the approximate 

 accuracy of which may be relied upon. 



However scientific men of all countries may recognize the universal 

 tie of scientific brotherhood, it is natural, and, we may add, it is right, 

 that the satisfaction we feel in each advance of science should not be 

 altogether independent of our feelings of nationality and patriotism. 

 We may rejoice in the discovery of every new scientific truth, and 

 we may rejoice the more when we can claim it for our own country. 

 Sometimes, however, the names of scientific men of other countries 

 vdll become so familiar to us, and such men will become so closely 

 associated with all our thoughts of scientific progress, that feelings of 

 nationality almost cease to influence the pleasure we feel in contem- 

 plating their success. M. d'Archiac has become, as it were, the 

 i'amiliar inmate of almost every geological library, and M. de Verneuil, 

 by his intimate geological association with yourself, is regarded by us 

 with almost the same feeling as if he were united to us by the ties of 

 country as well as by those of science. I cannot but regard it. Sir, 

 as a felicitous circumstance that the duty of transmitting to your 

 friend this testimony of our high esteem should so appropriately 

 have devolved upon yourself. I may request you, not only in the 

 name of the Council, but also in that of the whole Society, to assure 

 both M. d'Archiac and M. de Verneuil that we rejoice, not less than 

 their own countrymen, in the well-merited reputation which they 

 have gained by these scientific labours. We trust that they will 



