ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. IxXXV 



origin, but are to be entirely dissociated and united witb others, the 

 nearest of which, in the system of the Pyrenees, are separated from 

 them by many hundreds of miles, and only united to them by a 

 parallelism not less conventional than that which unites them as 

 curved lines among each other. To justify this view of the phseno- 

 mena of the district of the Weald and the Bas Boulonnais, the author 

 cites the cases of the Alps, the Pyrenees, and Wales, as those in 

 which different systems intersect each other. If there be evidence, 

 independent of mere direction, that these systems are referable to 

 different epochs, and are therefore really so many distinct systems, 

 there cannot be the slightest difficulty in admitting the conclusion ; 

 but I should deny its validity with reference to the Alps or the Py- 

 renees, as I have already done with respect to Wales, if those moun- 

 tains presented in their phsenomena the same simple unity of cha- 

 racter as the district of the Weald and Bas Boulonnais. I feel myself 

 bound here to remark, that our author speaks, perhaps too habitually, 

 of systems which are only known to be characterized by parallelism, 

 as if they were equally known to be characterized by contemporaneity . 



It is not my object, as I have before assured you, to direct your 

 notice to my own particular theories, but when I am contending against 

 the notion of referring phaenomena, with an obvious character of unity, 

 to several successive movements, I am anxious not to be misunder- 

 stood. The repetition which I object to is that of movements, each of 

 which would produce phsenomena characterized by a different law 

 (or, in such cases as those of which we are now speaking, by different 

 directions), when such repetition is arbitrarily assumed merely to 

 account for phsenomena connected by a distinct unity of character. 

 I should myself, also, generally refer phsenomena of elevation so con- 

 nected to several successive movements — one principal one which has 

 impressed the characteristic law which connects the Unes of elevation, 

 and other subordinate movements, which may produce additional 

 lines subject to the same laws as the phsenomena resulting from the 

 principal movement, and not following different laws as supposed by 

 our author in the case we have been discussing. 



The fifteenth system of M. de Beaumont is that of Corsica and 

 Sardinia, where its direction is N. and S. He divides the Tertiaries 

 of France into three groups, the Gres de Fontainebleau being the base 

 of the middle one. The epoch of the present system immediately 

 precedes the deposition of that formation. It is recognized in central 

 France, in Hungary and Syria, but not, I believe, in this country. It 

 was succeeded by the system of the Isle of Wight and Tatra. The 

 epoch assigned to the latter is that between the deposition of the 

 Gres de Fontainebleau and that of the Upper Freshwater Limestones 

 in the neighbourhood of Paris. Its direction is a little N. of W. and 

 S. of E. I have already expressed my opinion against the dismem- 

 berment of the well-defined system of lines of elevation of the south- 

 east of England, to which I consider the great dislocation of the Isle 

 of Wight and the Isle of Purbeck, included by M. de Beaumont in the 

 present system, to belong. He also recognizes this system in Hungary, 

 Turkey and Greece, as well as in various parts of the Alps and the 



