ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXXI 



convinced, while examining the spot, that the rock was no other than 

 the slate-clay of the lias formation in an indurated state." 



In 1814 Dr. Buckland visited, in conjunction with Mr. Greenough, 

 an insulated group of rocks of slate and greenstone in Cumberland 

 and Westmoreland, on the east side of Appleby, and his paper de- 

 scribing them was read March 28, 1815. Having pointed out the 

 association of the slates with greenstones and the appearance in two 

 localities of granite, enclosed as it were by the schists and differing 

 from the Shap Fell granite, he enters on the consideration of the 

 strata by which they are encircled. On the east side the Old Red 

 Sandstone is interposed, with little disturbance, between the slates 

 and the Mountain Limestone of Cross Fell ; but on the west side, or 

 in contiguity with the greenstone, there are evidences of considerable 

 disturbance. The beds, so regular and of such great thickness on 

 the east, appear but rarely on the west, whilst the red sandstone of 

 the plain of Carlisle abuts, except in a few cases, abruptly against 

 the greenstone and slates, or against the truncated extremities of the 

 lower limestone strata. Without following the authors into minute 

 details of the shattered limestones and associated coal-measures, 

 some of which had been thrown into a vertical position and brought 

 into contact with the greenstone, it may be observed that one great 

 object was to prove the distinction between the more recent red 

 sandstones of the plain of Carlisle, and the Old Red Sandstone or 

 conglomerate that divides the great limestone series of Cross Fell 

 from the slates, as the contact of both with the slate rocks had led 

 to much confusion and many doubts upon the subject. The result 

 of the investigation was, that Dr. Buckland came to the conclusion 

 that the Carlisle red sandstone is the same with that of the vales of 

 Cheshire, Salop, Lancashire, and York, the matrix of our quarries of 

 gypsum and rock-salt, and is geologically a deposit more recent than 

 the magnesian limestone which is incumbent on the upper strata of 

 the principal English coal-fields. Such investigations as these 

 were, at this early epoch, attended with great difficulties, and it 

 cannot be said that they are even now always freed from such diffi- 

 culties. 



In 1816 was read the paper on the Plastic Clay near Reading, 

 the result of inquiries made in 1814 ; and here we find him an able 

 pioneer in the Eocene formations, sketching out as it were the lead- 

 ing features and beginning that system of correlation between the 

 English beds and those of the Paris basin, which has since carried 

 this section of geological research so very near to perfection. It is 

 impossible to read this paper, in which we recognize the celebrated 

 Woolwich beds, and the sands in contact with the chalk, and the 

 wear and tear of the chalk, without admiring the acute and accurate 

 observation he gave to a subject which has subsequently exercised 

 so much patient inquiry. 



Another paper, read March 15, 1816, described the curious sili- 

 ceous bodies, like gigantic pears in form, found in the Chalk of the 

 North of Ireland, and known under the name of Paramoudra. The 

 animal nature of these bodies, and their analogy with other spon- 



