xliv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



after we had conferred on Sir Henry De la Beche the highest mark 

 of approbation in our power, before death deprived that institution of 

 its talented Director. I know that the Noble Lord, in whom the 

 appointment of a successor was vested, determined that he would 

 recommend no one to that office whose appointment would not be 

 satisfactory, not only to the public, but also to the members of that 

 scientific corps which the late Director had collected round him. 

 We all know who was appointed to that vacant office. A more 

 popular appointment than that of Sir Roderick Murchison could not 

 have been made, and I am confident that you will all agree with me 

 when I say, that whoever else might have been a candidate for this 

 office, if such there were, a better Director-General than Sir R. 

 Murchison could not have been found. I think, too, we may fairly 

 congratulate ourselves, that one of the most distinguished members of 

 this Society, one who has so often and so ably filled this chair, has 

 been chosen with the unanimous approbation of his countrymen to 

 fill this important post. Intimately associated with Sir H. De la 

 Beche and conversant with all his plans. Sir Roderick Murchison is 

 admirably qualified to carry out and to complete those comprehensive 

 views and systems of arrangement which the late Director had laid 

 down. We may, I trust, also hope that those bonds of cordiality 

 and alliance which have long united these two Institutions will be 

 drawn closer together by this appointment, and that the Museum of 

 Practical Geology will ever continue to work hand in hand with the 

 Geological Society of London in developing the mineral resources of 

 the country, and in carrying out the details of those branches of geo- 

 logical and palseontographical science in which they both delight. 



The publication of the third fasciculus of the work entitled " A 

 Synopsis of the Classification of the British Palaeozoic Rocks," by 

 the Rev. Adam Sedgwick, with " A Systematic Description of the 

 British Palaeozoic Fossils in the Geological Museum of the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge," by Professor M'Coy, enables me at last to 

 congratulate geologists, no less than Professor Sedgwick himself, on 

 the completion of his long protracted labours, in the appearance of a 

 work which adds so much to our knowledge of the Palaeontology ot 

 the ancient rocks, while it reflects the greatest credit on its accom- 

 plished author. 



This fasciculus contains the Carboniferous and Permian Mollusca 

 in the Cambridge Collection, several of which, as we are informed by 

 Prof. Sedgwick in the introduction, are so well preserved (especially 

 in the Series of Carboniferous Fossils from Lowick), that the internal 

 characters of the genera could be described more accurately than was 

 possible before on less perfect evidence. 



Prof. Sedgwick explains in the Introduction the reasons why, 

 instead of giving the synopsis alluded to in the title-page and contem- 

 plated when that title-page was struck off, he has been compelled to 

 publish the work, with little more by way of introduction than a cor- 

 rected and enlarged tabular view, — resembling that which was prefixed 

 to the second fasciculus of the Cambridge Palaeozoic fossils. Hopes, 

 however, are held out that this synopsis will be completed without 



