ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXXIU 



in 1821 on the same subject, and which was crowned with the Copley 

 Medal, until the close of my notice of his other works. 



The paper read on April 19, 1822, upon the excavation of valleys 

 by diluvial action, having been written Ijefore the publication of the 

 ' Reliquiae Diluviauie,' may be considered a precursor of that remark- 

 able work. Admitting, as every geologist must do, that the action 

 of those interngl forces which either elevate, depress, or crack the 

 crust of the earth must in many cases tend to form, or at least to 

 influence the direction of valleys, Dr. Buckland considered that the 

 irregularities consequent on the preceding action of subterraneous 

 forces had been modified by the action of violent imuidatiQUS hollow- 

 ing out portions of the surface and removing the fragments to a 

 distance, at different periods of time intermediate between the de- 

 position of the most ancient and the most recent formations. Here 

 it is evident that Dr. Buckland assumed an action of inundations or 

 floods, for the term cannot be applied to submarine currents, prior to 

 the historic deluge ; and in fact he connects them with that deluge 

 by stating that " a cause similar to that last mentioned has wrought 

 extensive changes on the surface (however variously modified by pre- 

 ceding catastrophes) at a period subsequent to the deposition and 

 consolidation of the most recent of the regular strata. The dilu- 

 vian waters to which these effects must be referred (if we except the 

 very limited and partial action of modern causes, such as of torrents 

 in cutting ravines of rivers, in forming deltas, of the sea in eroding 

 its clifl's, and of volcanos in ejecting and accumulating mineral mat- 

 ter) appear to have been the last agents that have operated in any 

 extensive degree to change the form of the earth's surface." Since 

 that period the idea has become familiar to our minds, through the 

 philosophical labours of Sir C. Lyell, that the forces and causes we 

 see now in action, or in other words " the modern causes " of Dr. 

 Buckland, are only so many exemplifications of the laws of Nature, 

 — laws which we have no reason to believe have ever been other than 

 invariable. Whilst then most modern geologists would assuredly 

 ascribe the formation, as well as the modification of the many land 

 valleys referred to by Dr. Buckland, to natural causes, such as are 

 now in action, few would attribute them to the action of a violent and 

 transient inundation ; and if not the land valleys, how much less 

 would they be disposed to admit that " the English Channel is a 

 submarine valley, which owes its origin in a great measure to dilu- 

 vian action" ! It is unnecessary to enter here into a consideration 

 of the great physical difficulty of placing water in such a position, 

 or of investing it with such a moving power, as should enable it to 

 produce by one great movement such .magnificent effects ; and I will 

 only state my humble conviction, that the advocates of moderate 

 forces continuing in action for a long time, rather than those w'ho 

 assume vast forces acting in a moment (as it were) of time, are at 

 present in the ascendent. 



1822. — About the same period Dr. Buckland w-as associated with 

 the Rev. W. D. Conybeare in a paper (published in the same volume 

 as the above) on the " South-western Coal District of England." 



VOL. XIII. C 



