xlvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



give utterance to the sentiments of all present, when I say that we 

 owe a debt of gratitude to the author for having laid before us in 

 such a comprehensive manner the vast amount of information con- 

 tained in his two former works, * The Silurian System,' and ' Russia 

 and the Ural Mountains,' enhanced by the addition of the results of 

 subsequent investigations up to the time of publication. Our thanks 

 are due to him, moreover, for having published his book in a form 

 and at a price which make it accessible to every geological student. 

 By a judicious method of condensation, which, while diminishing the 

 bulk, has preserved the essence and character of the subject-matter, 

 the author of * Siluria ' has brought before us in one comprehensive 

 glance the whole phaenomena of the Palaeozoic rocks throughout the 

 world. 



In alluding to this publication, however, I am happy to find that 

 I have no occasion to tax my own powers, or to be suspected of par- 

 tiality in analysing a work which has been so generally approved of. 

 If the Geological Society had not been deprived of the services of 

 my eminent predecessor by his removal to the University of Edin- 

 burgh in the middle of his presidency, and if his valuable life had 

 not been so prematurely cut short, it would have been his duty to 

 perform a task for which he was so much better qualified than my- 

 self. Fortunately, however, as respects ' Siluria,' we have the record 

 of the deliberately formed judgment of our late President, as pub- 

 lished last autumn, and which is the more valuable, inasmuch as 

 some of his theoretical views were not in unison with those of the 

 author. 



After giving a summary of the Silurian formations, the words of 

 our lamented President, which, had he been alive, he would assuredly 

 have addressed to ourselves, are these : — 



" Now, when it is recollected that the * Silurian System,' that 

 great work in which its author fully stated and co-ordinated the 

 results of his researches on the Welsh border, was given to the world 

 only fifteen years ago, and that the very epithet ' Silurian' was itself 

 assigned to these formations no longer ago than in the year 1835, 

 the influence of Sir Roderick Murchison's labours and generalizations 

 in stimulating discovery, and leading to a clear understanding of the 

 earlier sedimentary rocks, must be regarded as great indeed. And, 

 be it observed, in this short sketch of foreign primaeval geology, we 

 have used the word Silurian constantly, not of our own choice, or to 

 do honour to its inventor, but because it is the term applied to the 

 rocks in question by their explorers in all countries. The geologists 

 of the continent, of Australia, and of America, have identified the 

 older palaeozoic formations, whose structure and fossil contents they 

 have so admirably described, with the * Silurian ' system of our own 

 country, and with the types of its greater sections as defined by its 

 first investigator. In fact, they have adopted as a standard that 

 system which, being definite in its details, enabled them to obtain a 

 distinct scale for the purposes of comparison. They have not chosen 

 their nomenclature on account of its author, but because the model 

 he had set before them is perspicuous and intelligible. 



" We question whether any practical geologist now living would 



