ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. liii 



promised. The authors, ever ready to acknowledge and do justice to 

 the labours of those who have gone before them, not only satisfactorily 

 show that the spirit of geological research is active and working among 

 Spanish men of science, but also demonstrate, by a detailed cata- 

 logue of no fewer than 1.54 works and memoirs, that Spanish geology 

 is not so unexplored as many of us are apt to fancy. Among the 

 names of British contributors in his long list are those of Lyell, 

 Silverton, Cook, Traill, Daubeny, Pratt, and Smith of Jordan Hill. 

 Although when British geologists make raids into the neighbouring 

 regions of the Continent, especially France, Belgium, and Germany, 

 where so many able and eminent brethren of the hammer are ex- 

 ploring with success the structure of their native countries, the ob- 

 ject and purpose of their predatory incursions are chiefly to benefit by 

 the experience and teaching of their scientific neighbours, occasion- 

 ally they feel bound to differ and attempt to correct. There are 

 some provinces, indeed, so closely allied in their geological constitution 

 to well-explored portions of our own archipelago that they seem as 

 outliers of our own geology, and therefore fair fields for critical 

 inquiry. One of these lies almost beside our shores, and is well 

 worthy of examination and study by every geologist engaged in the 

 examination of the upper and middle palaeozoics. I allude to the 

 country about Marquise in the neighbourhood of Boulogne. Although 

 not unfrequently described by both French and English observers, 

 much obscurity hangs over the chronological affinities of the palaeo- 

 zoic rocks of this district ; and although latterly the demonstration 

 of these relations was being more nearly approached than a few years 

 ago, there still remained much to be done, and none among our 

 countrymen is fitter to undertake their exploration and elucidation 

 than Mr. x'Vusten, whose knowledge of the palaeozoics of Devon 

 peculiarly qualify him for this task. The valuable memoir com- 

 municated to us in March last is the account of his researches. 

 Leaving its details, as published in our Journal, to explain themselves, 

 I will merely call attention to two or three results of leading interest. 

 Mr. Austen clearly proves that all the Palaeozoics of this district 

 belong to the Carboniferous and Devonian series. If any doubt 

 could be entertained respecting any portion of these beds, it would 

 fall upon the black schist of Caffiers, the lowest visible member, and 

 hitherto regarded as unquestionably Silurian ; this he sets pro- 

 visionally aside. But Mr Sharpe, in his excellent appended note, 

 places the supposed lower palaeozoic nature of this schist in an 

 extremely doubtful position, by showing that the so-called Graptolites 

 contained in it are really plants. The determination of the true 

 relations of the yellow sandstone belts, with their characteristic con- 

 tained bivalves, is an important step, and gives us a zone of division 

 between the carboniferous and Devonian limestones, the true equi- 

 valents of which are evident and similar in our own regions of Devon 

 and in Ireland. In the latter country this horizon marks distinctly 

 what may be regarded as the line of division between the lower 

 carboniferous rocks — the carboniferous slates, Sec. of Dr. Grifiith — 

 and the upper jjortion oi" what may be considered the Devonian series 



