﻿Vol. 64.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. CXXi 



still one of controversy, I refrain from further reference to it, 

 save to express my own conviction that Ramsay's memoir, which 

 appeared in our Quarterly Journal nearly half a century ago, was 

 one of the boldest and most original essays on a physiographical 

 subject that has been written in our day and, within definable 

 limits, furnishes a satisfactory solution of one of the most puzzling 

 features in the topography of northern latitudes. 



The interest in physiographical questions has greatly increased 

 since the publication of Ramsay's papers. But the recent literature 

 of the subject is to be sought mainly outside of the publications 

 of the Society. Among the papers which have been printed in our 

 Quarterly Journal, I may refer to that of Mr. Clement Reid, ' On 

 the Origin of Dry Valleys & of Coombe-Rock,"^ in which the 

 ingenious suggestion is made, that if during the Glacial Period the 

 surface of a tract of porous Chalk were frozen for some distance 

 downward, so as to prevent the ready descent of superficial water, 

 considerable erosion might take place each summer during the 

 rapid melting of snow, and that in this way valleys in the Chalk, 

 which are now quite dry, might have been eroded. 



I have already referred to the contributions of the late 

 Dr. Blanford and Mr. Drew on topographical features resulting 

 from the manner in which detrital materials are spread over low 

 grounds by the streams that descend from the mountains of Persia 

 and the Upper Indus. In this connection I would call attention 

 to the very able paper ' On the Estuaries of the Severn & its 

 Tributaries,' ^ by Prof. SoUas, who has entered as an independent 

 observer into almost every department of geology, and has left on 

 each the impress of his brilliant and original genius. In this 

 essay he discussed the nature, origin, and distribution of the tidal 

 sediment of these rivers, and the extremely slow manner in which 

 alluvial flats are formed. 



In concluding this outline of the Geological Society's labours 

 during the past hundred years, I wish to allude to one charac- 

 teristic feature of our history which ought not to be omitted from 

 such a review. The loyalty of the Fellows to the Society, which 

 has shown itself in so many ways, has been testified by a few of 

 the most eminent of their number, not only in their lifetime, 

 but by legacies, which continue, after their death, to enable the 

 Society to encourage research, and to confer distinction on those 



1 Q. J. vol. xliii (1887) p. 364. -* Q. J. vol. xxxix (1883) p. 611. 



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