﻿Xl PBOCEEDTNGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



mend to the careful study of geologists. I refer to Chapter IX., " On 

 the Imperfection of the Geological Record," and to the folloAving 

 chapter, " On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings." They 

 will do well to study with great attention their valuable contents. 

 They will there be taught a most useful lesson of the caution to be 

 exercised in drawing conclusions from organic remains which may 

 involve the grave questions of the age and correlation of formations ; 

 and when disposed to name an imagined new species, they will be 

 reminded that " naturalists have no golden rule by which to di- 

 stinguish species and varieties," and they will learn to pause until 

 they feel assured that no sources of mistake have been overlooked. 



It would be both useful and interesting if the annual Presidential 

 Address were to contain a summary of the most prominent geological 

 memoirs contained in the Transactions and Journals of foreign 

 countries ; but the field over which the researches in geology now 

 extend is so vast, that it is beyond the power of any individual to 

 give even a brief sketch of the labours, in a single year, of its more 

 eminent foreign cultivators. Were the limits within which an ad- 

 dress of this kind ought to be confined in itself no obstacle, there is 

 the manifest impossibility for any one individual to possess that ac- 

 quaintance with what has been done in the past year in chemistry, 

 mineralogy, physics, botany, and zoology, which would enable him 

 to touch upon even the salient points in those branches which bear 

 upon our science ; and, as you are aware, geology lays every one 

 of them under contribution. But although a review of our own 

 proceedings be unnecessary, and a summary of the labours of foreign 

 cultivators of natural science be impracticable, our annual meetings 

 are fit occasions for calling the attention of our Fellows to some of 

 the more important subjects which have more recently occupied the 

 attention of geologists. Among those, the researches in what may 

 appropriately be called Chemical Geology occupy a prominent place. 



The application of chemistry to the explanation of geological phe- 

 nomena has hitherto received more attention on the continent than 

 with us. The greater features of the earth's structure and palaeon- 

 tology in its various branches have, with few exceptions, been the 

 chief study of British geologists. When organic remains no longer 

 present themselves in the older formations, or are nearly obliterated 

 in the newer, the term metamorphic has become very current ; but 

 the origin of metamorphism (that is, the exciting causes of the mole- 

 cular actions by which it could have been brought about in accord- 

 ance with known chemical laws) has rarely been a subject of in- 

 vestigation with us. Metamorphism must, in every case, be the 

 result of chemical action ; and we can only arrive at a just concep- 

 tion of the processes by which the various forms under which it 

 presents itself could have been produced, by illustrations afforded by 

 experiments in the laboratory, under the guidance of an accurate 

 acquaintance with chemical agencies and the laws of combination 

 among mineral elements. So also it is only by the same safe 

 guidance that we can hope to arrive at a right knowledge of the 



