ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 155 



ition rocks, the fossiliferous grauwacke, of the western parts of Here- 

 fordshire and Shropshire and the adjoining parts of Wales ; and it is 

 remarkable that so early as 1837, we find the " Terrain Silurien'' 

 recognised by the most experienced and distinguished of the French 

 geologists. Indeed nothing can prove more strongly the accuracy 

 of the principles upon which English geologists have separated the 

 several groups of the stratified rocks in the British Isles, than the 

 adoption by our brother-geologists of France not only of these di- 

 visions as normal types of formations, but of the English names 

 by which they were originally distinguished. Thus, in the pro- 

 spectus of the forthcoming ^ Palceontologie Universelle' of M. Alcide 

 d'Orbigny, we find the Etages Silurien^ Devonien, Liassique, Bath- 

 ojiien, Oxfordien, Kimmeridgien and Portlandien ; and even the 

 provincial term of gaidt is there canonized. 



Having finished his work on Siluria, Sir R. Murchison did not 

 claim any respite from the labours of the field, as our Proceedings 

 and Transactions testify by several valuable communications ; and in 

 184-0, in conjunction with one of our most eminent foreign mem- 

 bers, M. de Verneuil, and a young enterprising Russian geologist. 

 Count Keyserling, he undertook the herculean task of exploring 

 Russia in Europe, the Ural Mountains, and a considerable part of 

 Sweden ; mainly, as he tells us, " to test whether the British palaeo- 

 zoic classifications would be found equally true over a vast area, in 

 which, since few or no igneous rocks were known, the history of 

 succession might, he hoped, be read off" in a very perfect and un- 

 broken manner." The results of their joint labours have just been 

 given to the public in two great and admirably illustrated volumes, 

 which, from the variety and amount of the new and valuable in- 

 formation they contain, may justly be considered as the most im- 

 portant geological work that has appeared in this country, not only 

 in the past year, but for a long period. The authors ask modestly, 

 but very unnecessarily in my opinion, indulgence for inaccuracies 

 of detail " in a first outline of regions which they traversed rapidly 

 and partially examined." The local surveyor or engineer may per- 

 haps discover inaccuracies of detail ; but these, even if they exist, 

 do not interfere with the broad general views, the great questions of 

 geological interest, based on a most extensive series of observations, 

 and described with clearness and perspicuity, which we find through- 

 out these volumes. 



Following the example of my predecessors, I propose to notice, 

 in the first place, in the order of formations, such particulars re- 

 lating to the sedimentary rocks as have most arrested my attention 

 during the last year, contained in the works I have had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining with care. But bolbre proceeding to that 

 systematic review, it may be useful, for the reason 1 have already 

 assigned, to give an outline of the great features in the geology of 

 Russia in Europe and the eastern boundary of the Ural Mountains, 

 described by Sir R. Murchison. And although ho nowhere speaks 

 in these volumes in the first person, but associates his fellow-travel- 

 lers with him in all he tells us, if for the sake of brevity 1 more gene- 



