ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xlvii 



of Greenland *," and by Dr. Sutherland in his researches, published in 

 our Journal, on the western coasts of Northern Greenland. In Green- 

 land at the present moment we have a vast extent of land " covered," 

 to use Dr. Rink's words, "with ice to a certain elevation ; mountains 

 and valleys levelled to an uniform plane ; river-beds concealed, as 

 well as every vestige of the original form of the country." The 

 movement commencing far inland, which that able observer describes 

 as thrusting the outward edge of this mass of ice forward towards 

 the sea, would doubtless produce over a large area effects of general 

 smoothing, grooving, and striation similar to those presented by the 

 surface of Scotland. To every student of ancient glacial action, Dr. 

 Rink's interesting paper must be of considerable value. 



In Ireland the members of the Geological Society of Dublin have 

 sent forth an interesting part of their Journal, containing the pro- 

 ceedings of the last session. Mr. Willson of the Geological Survey 

 contributes an outline of his observations on the Geology of the 

 Southern portion of the County of Cork, chiefly concerning the 

 thickness of the rocks that intervene between the old red sandstone 

 and the carboniferous limestone in that district. To some of the facts 

 stated in this paper, I would direct attention for the sake of English 

 investigators of the middle palaeozoic strata. At Bally-cotten bay, 

 shales, slates, grits, and flagstones alternate, and occupy the interval 

 between the carboniferous limestone and Old Red, to the thickness of 

 2000 feet. At Monkstown similar beds are 2600 feet. More to the 

 south, between the neighbourhood of Bandon and the Seven Heads, 

 3800 feet of strata were measured without reaching the limestone, and 

 at the Seven Heads, the intermediate beds are 4500 feet, with no 

 certainty of their uppermost portion being reached. Mr. J. Kelly, in 

 an interesting paper " On the Quartz Rocks of the Northern Part of 

 the County of Wicklow," combats the view adopted in some sections, 

 published by the Geological Survey, to the effect that they are beds 

 interstratified with slaty rocks, and maintains the amorphous cha- 

 racter of the masses, and their intrusive origin. Considerable diffi- 

 culties doubtless attend the certain delineation of the relations of these 

 quartz rocks, in some measure owing to the state of the country, which 

 is much obscured by drift. A compact and well-worked memoir on 

 the Geology of Portraine, an isolated district in the neighbovirhood of 

 Dublin, famous for the interest of the Silurian fossils that have been 

 procured from a small patch of strata of the Llandeilo type, contains 

 the particulars of a highly interesting tract, previously undescribed 

 in detail. The paper is by Mr. Henry Medlicott, a young geologist 

 of varied accomplishments and much promise, who has lately gone 

 out to India to join the Geological Survey under the direction of 

 Mr. Oldham. Professor Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, com- 

 mences a series of notes on the Irish mines, and, combining his eminent 

 mathematical and physical acquirements with practical field geology, 

 has read a memoir on the newer palaeozoic rocks which border the 

 Menai Straits, In this essay, after describing the physical structure 



* Journal of the Royfil Geographical Society, vol. xxiii. for 1853. 



