Anniversary Address. 227 



with more or leSs intensity. Fortunately its range was 

 general, and no member of the Club came to the place of 

 meeting that day. Our Secretary^ who with laudable zeal 

 had made the necessary arrangements for the meeting while 

 I was at Southport, and Messrs Wilson and Weddell of Ber- 

 wick, who had come to Wooler a day before, gave me the 

 pleasure of their society. To them 1 read a short paper, 

 on the Geological features of the Glendale Valley, which I 

 had had an opportunity of introducing to the notice of the 

 Geological section of the British Association. I subjoin its 

 outlines. 1st the Primary System of the Cheviots, probably 

 elevated several thousands of feet above their present height 

 and gradually reduced by atmospheric and glacial action. 

 2nd, The Carboniferous formation to the east, resulting from 

 an exuberant vegetation and tropical climate, which in the 

 course of thousands of years had been submerged and ele- 

 vated by volcanic influences operating during immense 

 periods, when the sea may have laved the base of the 

 Cheviots. By degrees the climate became of an arctic tem- 

 perature, " darkness was upon the face of the deep," and 

 the mountain range deeply laden by snow and ice discharged 

 its surplus burden, with masses of rock and debris, into the 

 lower valleys, which may have been grooved and deepened 

 by the immense pressure from above. The abrading effect 

 of this glacial era would leave few traces of the sea upon the 

 mountain base. Then was formed those beds of boulder clay, 

 gravel, and sand occupying the vale of Glendale, which the 

 industry of man, in recent times, has clothed with rich 

 meadows and cultivated crops. A more benign temperature 

 in post tertiary times, after thawing the ice had left the vale 

 an inland lake which ultimately drained off" by the weakest or 

 or lowest point of the inclosing banks ; after which a swamp 

 and jungle forest would occupy the rich alluvium, until the 

 increase of man reduced the wilderness to a fruitful field. 

 Dispersed, in more or less abundance by the agency of mov- 

 ing or floating ice, we find in our days, or on the surface 

 erratic blocks of primary rocks pertaining to formations 

 hundreds of miles distant. Even from the Labrador coast, or 



