ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xlv 



shire coal-field during the epoch of emergence of the British area 

 from the glacial sea ; the waters being driven eastwards down the 

 lines of valley which formed the course of easiest retreat. The 

 absence of gravels in many districts he attributes to the protecting 

 influence of high bluffs of land to the north of these bare areas. 



The leading features of the northern drift in Yorkshire, as well as 

 the other geological phsenomena of the district, are sketched in a 

 masterly style by Professor Phillips, in his lately published volume 

 on the Mountains, Rivers, and Coasts of his native county. In the 

 geological chapter of this work, the subject of the nomenclature of 

 epochs is considered, and a scheme of terms suggested, founded 

 chiefly on the leading organic characters of each section of time. A 

 very neat and clear map of the geology of Yorkshire, by the same 

 eminent observer, has been published dui'ing the year, and is 

 remarkable for being printed by chromo-lithography, a process that 

 is fast advancing to an astonishing degree of perfection. And here I 

 may incidentally congratulate our science on the recent appointment 

 of our illustrious associate to the Professorship of Geology in the 

 University of Oxford ; one that confers equal honour on the receiver 

 and the givers. In this instance that famous school of learning has 

 endeavoured earnestly and conscientiously to forward the true in- 

 terests of science ; and every geologist in the world will applaud the 

 choice. A University that has boasted for ages of having held in 

 especial honour our great master in Natural History, Aristotle, and 

 that now possesses magnificent collections in all its departments, 

 invaluable for study, may yet become a favoured home of Geology 

 and Biology. 



The Geology of Scotland has not received many descriptive con- 

 tributions during the past year. One of the most interesting is the 

 memoir on the Granitic district of Inverary, in Argyleshire, read 

 before us by the Duke of Argyll. His Grace has rendered good 

 service to the geology of his country before, for to him we owe the 

 discovery of its older tertiary beds. In the paper he has now given, 

 he deals with igneous and azoic rocks. The chief problem which 

 he seeks to solve in the district under description, is the cause of 

 the regular alternations of mica-slate and granite, the beds of which 

 rocks lie conformable to each other at a considerable angle. After 

 showing the insufficiency of any other mode of explanation, the 

 noble author argues that the mica-slates, already completely con- 

 solidated and metamorphosed, fell in from a horizontal to an inclined 

 position, and by falling forced the molten igneous matter between 

 the loosened planes of stratification. The considerations put forward 

 in this memoir are highly worthy of attention, and it is to be hoped 

 that they will give rise to not a few minute examinations of the 

 crystalline rocks of the Highlands, in localities where similar phseno- 

 mena present themselves. 



The Silurians of the south-west of Scotland have been described in 

 detail, so far as Kirkcudbrightshire is concerned, by Professor Hark- 

 ness, who considers these beds to represent successively the Llandeilo 

 flags, the Caradoc sandstone, and the lower portion of the Upper 



