1855.] 



BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



143 



of younger men of his oivn standing, he assisted, along with Dr. Bal- 

 four, the present Professor of Botany, in founding the Edinburgh 

 Botanical Society. 



With his varied tastes and acquirements, it may readily be believed 

 that Edward Forbes possessed the most comprehensive intellectual 

 sympathies. Hence the peculiar value of his labours in the wide field 

 which Geology embraces ; and hence, no less so, the keen sense of 

 irreparable loss felt by those who have enjoyed his personal friendship, 

 or have shared in the privileges of intellectual cooperation and rivalry. 

 His private conversation was peculiarly varied and attractive, and as 

 has been already hinted, when he unbent himself among his more inti- 

 mate friends, he was the delight of the social circle. As a public speaker, 

 he was graceful, lucid, and when the subject required, and admitted 

 of it, eloquent, and rich in playful fancy. 



Dr. Forbes' last Ulness manifested its earliest symptoms by a ner- 

 vousness, altogether unusual in him, when he began his course of 

 lectures for the present winter. When it assumed more formidable 

 symptoms, he ascribed it to a return of the ague, which he had caught 

 during his expedition to Lycia, and subsequent examination after his 

 death confirmed the belief that the seeds of the disease which termi- 

 nated his life were sown during that period, when he underwent much 

 fatigue and exposure, in his ardent pursuit of the objects for which he 

 had been despatched to that long-unknown region. His friend, 

 Professor Goodsir, remarks, in reference to his death, when apparently 

 on the threshold of a new course of more concentrated labours, and of 

 correspondingly higher triumphs :—^" His sudden death, while causing 

 deepest sorrow to his many friends, will be deplored by all who can 

 appreciate the additions already made to Natural History by his genius 

 and acquiremcnts,and the promise of what he might have accomplished 

 had his life been prolonged. His friends, indeed, know well how irre- 

 parable is their loss ; but it is more difBcult to estimate the loss to 

 science caused by the removal of one who, following like his predeces- 

 sors, W,alker and Jameson, in the footsteps of Linna;us, gave promise 

 of raising the Science of Natural History to a height nowhere yet 

 attained. The hope that his labours would issue in such an important 

 result was entertained on solid grounds by those who knew him inti- 

 mately from the commencement of his career, and were thoroughly 

 acquainted, as well with his past labours, as with his plan of future 

 work." This is but one expression of what all feel. Another fellow- 

 student and attached friend thus speaks of him, in announcing his 

 death to the writer of this brief notice: — "Edward Forbes was a man 

 of genius, and united to it so much good sense, prudence, discretion, 

 kindliness, gentleness, and geniality, that it is no wonder he was so 

 very largely and widely honoured and loved. To myself his loss is in 

 many respects irreparable. Short-sighted mortals that we are, he 

 and I had been arranging extensive conjoint labours, and this is the 

 end of it I With nearly every one there is the feeling that he is taken 

 away, not from the evil to come; but from the good that was antici- 

 pated from his work." 



His funeral, which took place on Thursday, Nov. 23rd., was attend- 

 ed by the magistrates of the city, the Professors and students of the 

 University, and a large body of the citiaens. He is laid at rest in the 

 Dean Cemetery, a beautiful wooded retreat on the banks of the waters 

 of Leith, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where Lord Jeffrey, Lord 

 Coburn, Professor Wilson, David Scott the painter, and others of 

 greater and lesser note are interred. 



TTrcnty>fourth Meeting of the Britisli Association for tlie 

 Advancement of Science.* 



LIVERPOOL, SEPTEMBER, 1854. 



On Some of the more recent Chanyes in the Area of the Irish Sea : hy 

 Rev. J. G. Cu.m5u.no. 

 All the recent changes in the relative level of land and sea, indicated 

 in the Isle of Man, appear to have extended to the surrounding coasts 

 of Britain and Ireland. The period of the boulder clay was marked by 

 a cold climate and the subsidence of the island and surrounding coasts 

 to the extent of at least 1,600 feet ; — and, during the re-elevation of 

 the country, there was an interval, when the land was stationary at 

 about fifteen feet above its present level. The sea-bed of the great 

 drift gravel was then left dry, forming an extensive treeless plain, 

 connecting the Isle of Man with the surrounding countries, England 

 being at that time united to the Continent. This was the second ele- 



*From the London Athenjcum. 



phantine period, in which the great Iris^ stag {Cervus megaceros) be- 

 came an inhabitant of the Isle of Man, along with other animals whose 

 remains are found in the fresh-water marls occupying basin-shaped 

 depressions in the gravel plain. The marl basins and the plains them- 

 selves were afterwards covered with vegetation, and are still often oc- 

 cupied with beds of peat, containing forest trees ; but, during the same 

 period, the sea was quietly eating back its way into the terrace of drift 

 gravel, until the Isle of Man became insulated and the further immi- 

 gration of animals and plants was aiTested. Cliffs of di-ift gravel oc- 

 cur on all the coasts of the island, sometimes capping the hard rocks, 

 at others retiring a liUle distance inland. The form of the channel, 

 and the greater waste of the pleistocene deposits in the south of the 

 Isle of Man, show that the action of the sea was chiefly from the south ; 

 and its higher level is proved by the numerous water-worn caves, above 

 the highest modern tides, along the whole southern and western shores. 

 A still later change is indicated by the submerged forests, on many 

 parts of the coast, which appear to have grown after the formation of 

 the gravel terrace, during a temporary elevation, by which the bed of 

 the Irish sea was once more laid dry. Whether the last subsidence 

 took place during the historic period is a question yet to be determined. 

 On the Great Terrace of Erosion, in Scotland, and its Relative Date and 

 Connexion with Glacial Phenomena : hy Mr. R. Chajibees. 



This terrace is very conspicuous, at twenty to thirty feet above the 

 sea, along the Frith of Clyde, the Islands of"Bute and Arran and coast 

 of Argyle, but is less remarkable on the east coast of Scotland. The 

 shells found on it are all of recent species. On the west coast the hills 

 generally slope smoothly to the present beach, broken only by the 

 well-defined rectangular cut of the great terrace, which forms a level 

 platform, seldom less than 100 feet wide, at the base of a vertical cliff, 

 often forty feet high. The cliff is perforated by many caves, and 

 sometimes rough with overhanging stones ; whilst fantastic masses of 

 harder rock occasionally rise up from the platform. This terrace is 

 considered to indicate the sea's action during a much longer time than 

 the present beach has existed, and to have been formed at a period of 

 some comparative geological antiquity. On the north-west coast of 

 Arran the ancient sea cliff is 50 to 100 feet high ; and the opening of 

 Glen Jorsa is filled to a considerable height with terraces of detritus. 

 The lower part of the detritus is composed of blue clay and small half- 

 worn boulders ; over it is a bed of coarse gravel and then fine sand. 

 Some of this detritus rests on the face of the cliff itself, showing its 

 origin to have been posterior to the incising action of the sea, by which 

 the terrace was formed. The surface of the drift is not less than 140 

 feet above the sea level, and it is considered to be the product of a 

 glacier once filling Glen Jorsa. The coarse sand and gravel indicate 

 periods at which the land occupied different levels and the sea pene- 

 trated more and more into the valley : a succession of events requiring 

 a great length of time. 



Further Observations on Glacial Phenomena in Scotland and the yorth 

 of England: by Mk. B. Chambeks. 



The author referred to his former attempt to establish a distinction 

 between an early general' operation of ice over the surface of Scot- 

 land, by which the boulder clay was formed, and a more recent 

 presence of valley glaciers in the chief mountain-systems, bearing as 

 its monument a looser and coaser detritus, like the moraines of the 

 Alps. The latter is supposed to have taken place without the presence 

 of the sea ; the former with the sea or with ice covering so large a 

 surface as not to allow of drainage,— just as on the west coast of 

 Northern Greenland, Dr. Rink has sho^vn that continental ice of vast 

 thickness is continually advancing from the interior to the coast, and 

 thus breaking off in icebergs. Additional examples of true moraines, 

 or sub-aerial glacial deposits, have been observed in two of the valleys 

 of Ben Macdin, Aberdeenshire, where conspicuous terminal moraines 

 occur at various stages; in Glen Dearg four of these occur, a mile or 

 two apart,— the height of one of them is 130 feet, the bottom of the 

 valley being about 1,700 feet above the sea. In the valley of the Dec, 

 the lateral vale of Muick has also a remarkable series of moraines at 

 a much lower level. In the Tay valley below Aberfeldy, not more 

 than 300 feet above the sea, there is moraine matter ; and near Garth 

 Castlo are some more recent terminal moraines of the same glacier. 

 The.se and other examples show that glaciers have been wherever the 

 mountains approach 3,000 feet. Another class of Scottish moraines is 

 connected with shallow recesses of the more elevated mountains, being 

 placed in front of them, as if masses of snow had gathered till an out- 

 ward movement took place, carrying coarse detritus for a few hundred 

 yards. One of these exists in Benmoro Coigach, near Ullapool, and 

 the moraines which confine Lochs Whorral and Brandy are of the same 



