.ANNIVERSAUY ADDHESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXXI 



mining, metallurgy, and other works useful to his country, and 

 always happy to -welcome the English visitor who carried a hammer 

 and sketch-book. Few members of any reigning family have deserved 

 so well of their contemporaries and posterity. 



Geology, as we are continually reminded by friendly commenta- 

 tors, has fairly taken its place among the Inductive Sciences ; and 

 by acting in tho spirit which has won our emancipation from the 

 tyranny of hypothesis, we have established firmly the authority of 

 real laws and phenomena. From time to time, indeed, the historical 

 aspect of geology roveals itself, in efforts moro or less unsuccessful, 

 to tear aside the veil which hides tho origin of things, and to deduce 

 not only the modern features of the land and sea from ancient phy- 

 sical revolutions, but tho actual forms of life on the globe from 

 earlier types modified by somo assumed law of variation operating- 

 through unlimited time. Let us not, while wandering in this dark 

 labyrinth of cosmogony, lose our hold of the slender thread which. 

 may bring us back to tho light of true philosophy. 



Looking, indeed, at the practical character of the papers presented 

 to our meetings, there would seem to be no need of such a warning 

 to the Geological Society. The Foraminifera have been largely illus- 

 trated by Jones and Parker; Fossil Botany has been brought before 

 us in a general senso by Goppert and l)e Zigno, and with mimite 

 microscopical detail by Dawson; Permian Chitonhhe arc noticed l>y 

 Kirkby ; the Fossils of the Lingula-nags by Salter ; the Fishes of the 

 Old Rod Sandstono by Egerton, and Anderson, and Symonds ■ Rham* 

 phorhynchw Bucklandu } Crocodilian Remains, Reptiles from Africa 

 and Australia, a Cetacean, and a Bird by Huxley ; Reptilian Remains 

 from South Africa by Owen; a New Reptile from the Coal-measures 

 by Dawson ; Chcirolhcriuni by Jirodie. The Cretaceous period is illus- 

 trated in England by Godwin -Austen's notices of the carbona e 

 mass enclosed in the chalk of Kent, and of tic fossils "I' the dial! I ■' 

 Guildford; and in Jamaica by Barrett. It is taken as the Bubject 

 of a general and interesting speculation by Mr. Searles Wood, jun. 

 The works of arl in the gravel of Amicus and the eaves of Sioilj 

 have beau explored by Falconer, Prestwich, Flower, Godwin-Austen, 

 and LyelL Facts in Australian Geology are communicated bySdU 

 wyn, Burr, and Wood. Captain Bpratt semis ids observations 05 

 Bessarabia ; Lamont on Spitsbergen ; Codrington on the Glaciers of 

 Norway j Murray on Fossils from the East Indies; AJlport from 



Buhia." 



At home, tli.- Topographical Geology of Scotland has Mill oharms 

 for Ifurchison, Sarkness, Geikie, and J amieson j Binnie reports l.ias 

 in the plain of Carlisle j Hull measures the thickness of the strata in 

 the Midland Counties which perhaps cover coal at a moderate depth | 

 Lancaster and Wright make known the discovery of this precious 

 paateriql under the Permian beds of Worksop ; while Bauennan 



it in Vancouver's Island, Livingstone ami Thornton "li tic / 



and WeeJces ami 11. laphy in Neu Zealand. 

 Finally, Palaeontology is employed h\ Wright and Ethi 



