﻿Vol. 64.] ANNIYEKSARY ADDEESS OP THE PEESIDENT. IxXXV 



distinct member of the stratigraphical series iu this country, in 

 spite of the acknowledged practical difficulty in satisfactorily 

 defining its boundaries. That large areas were classed as Permian 

 which should have been kept in the Coal-Measures is now generally 

 acknowledged. 



A novel idea was presented to the Society in 1855 when A. 

 C. Eamsay read his paper on the breccias of Shropshire and 

 Worcestershire, which he claimed as evidence of the existence of 

 glaciers and icebergs in the Permian Period. It was, so far as I 

 know, the first published suggestion that the climate of any portion 

 of Palaeozoic time in our latitudes could have been cold enough to 

 admit of glacial action. Although the proposition did not meet 

 with universal acceptance, it had the effect, like other original ideas 

 of its gifted author, of stimulating enquiry, and thus preparing the 

 way for the recei)tion of other evidence of Palaeozoic glaciation from 

 widely separated parts of the world. ^ At a later date, Ramsay 

 returned to the subject of the geographical and climatological 

 conditions under which the red sedimentary deposits of the country 

 were accumulated, and communicated to the Society two papers, one 

 on the Triassic and the other on the Palaeozoic red sandstones, which 

 were printed in the 27th volume of our Quarterly Journal (1871). 

 He there insisted that all these formations indicate deposition in 

 lakes or inland seas during continental conditions of geography. 



The great series of Secondary formations, so admirably developed 

 in England, and filling so prominent a place in the history of 

 geological science from the use made of them by William Smith, 

 have naturally engrossed a large share of the attention of English 

 geologists. Not a district in which they are well displayed has 

 escaped examination and, in most cases, detailed description. The 

 various sections in which they are best exposed have been measured 

 in minute detail, their local variations in character and in thickness 

 have been traced across the country, their enclosed organic remains, 



1 Reference may be most conveniently made here to papers published by the 

 Society, bearing on old glacial periods. W. T. Blanford discussed the evidence 

 for glacial conditions iu India during the Paleozoic era, Q. J. xlii (1886) 249. 

 Prof. T. W. Edgeworth David has furnished much information regarding 

 similar evidence found in the Carboniferous or Permo-Carboniferous rocks of 

 Austraha, Q. J. xHii (1887) 190 & hi (1896) 289. Dr. A. Strahan has described 

 glacial phenomena of Palaeozoic age in the Varanger Fjord, Q. J. liii (1897) 

 137. Mr. E. T. Mellor has contributed a paper on the glacial or Dwyka 

 Conglomerate of the Transvaal, Q. J. Ixi (1905) 679. 



