154 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The Memoirs which were read in this room during the past yeai*, 

 to the conclusion of last session, have already been made known to all 

 through the medium of our Journal; and I will not anticipate the con- 

 tents of the number which will appear two months hence, and which, 

 in all probability, will include all that have been read,, and been or- 

 dered by the Council to be printed, up to the end of January ; a ra- 

 pidity of publication hitherto unexampled in the annals of the Society. 

 I have no occasion therefore to do more than allude very briefly to 

 what has been read within these walls, and I shall confine my obser- 

 vations almost entirely to what we have learned from other works 

 published during the last year. Four of these, of pre-eminent interest, 

 are the production of distinguished members of this Society — Sir 

 Roderick Murchison, Mr. Lyell, Professor Owen, Major Cautley and 

 Dr. Falconer. The 'Russia' of Sir R. Murchison and the 'America' 

 of Mr. Lyell are each so rich in observations of the highest value, 

 and embrace so many general views, that even a brief examination 

 of the most interesting subjects they treat of made it impossible for 

 me to refer to several other works of great interest, without ex- 

 ceeding all reasonable bounds. I have been the more inclined to 

 extend my remarks on the work on Russia, because it is less likely, 

 from its magnitude and price, to be in extensive circulation. 



It is little more than six years since the publication of ' The Si- 

 lurian System,' a work containing the results of several years of the 

 most assiduous observation, conducted with the greatest ability. The 

 appearance of this work will ever be held to form an epoch in geo- 

 logical science; and while it has secured to the author an imperish- 

 able name, it adds a lustre to this Society, in which he may be said 

 to have been trained. It is so accurate in its details, that a very 

 competent judge, who has trod, hammer in hand, over every part of 

 the region, holds it to be the best piece of topographical geology in 

 our language. Of the correctness of the descriptions I can speak 

 from personal experience during the last summer, in a limited but 

 somewhat complicated part of the country. But it is also a cha- 

 racteristic feature of all Sir R. Murchison's writings, that in the 

 midst of his details, general views are never lost sight of. The 

 principles of classification of the older of the palaeozoic rocks laid 

 down, and for the first time, in that work, have been proved by the 

 subsequent researches, both of himself and of others, in distant lands, 

 to be of the most extensive application. They threw a flood of light 

 over many regions that had been explored by the best geologists, 

 but were never before rightly understood ; and the key once placed 

 in their hands, geologists in all parts of the world were enabled to 

 interpret and elucidate whole chapters in the earth's history, which 

 revealed the most unexpected and important truths. The almost 

 immediate general adoption of the term chosen by the author for 

 his new classification of the rocks in question, was the most un- 

 equivocal proof that he had clearly established his case. It was 

 only in 1836 that he announced his adoption of the term " Silurian 

 System " for that group of distinct formations into which, after five 

 years of the most patient observation, he had separated the trans- 



