ANNIVEHSARY ADDEESS OF THE PBESIDENT, XXXI 



comparative excellence, as to be of indispensable use to these and 

 other parts of onr social system. 



The principal difficulty is in the district of the Enghsh Lakes, 

 which, though examined by many geologists since it was fairly 

 opened by Otley, and Sedgwick, and Smith*, is still one of the parts 

 of this country which are least accurately mappedf. In the boun- 

 daries of the granites and syenites, in the ranges of trap-rocks, 

 in the geography of faults and axes of movement. Prof. Sedgwick 

 is not only the highest, but, in fact, for many parts the only 

 authority. May we cherish the hoj)e that the remainder of his 

 work in a district so dear to his memory will be comj)leted by addi- 

 tional memoirs in our Proceedings, already rich in monuments of 

 his genius and industry I t 



Dui'ing the last few years, the exact limits of the Devonian and 

 other large groups of British strata have been made the subject 

 of discussion and local examination. As an example may be quoted 

 the researches of Prof. Jukes, Mr. Du Noyer, and Mr. Kelly, on 

 the Old Eed Sandstone of Ireland. One of the more prominent 

 inqmries of this nature has been brought before the Society during 

 the past session by Sir Eoderick Murchison and Prof. Huxley. The 

 former geologist has taken great pains to ascertain the tnie classi- 

 j&cation of the older strata of Scotland (in this often concurring 

 "with Prof. Nicol, whose excellent map, lately published, \\dll be of 

 the greatest service to geologists), and in particular the true place 

 in the series of the upper sandstones of the coast of Elgin, Il^airn, 

 and Banff. These he decides to be of the Upper Devonian series. 

 In them he found bones of a reptile — not, like the Telerpeton of the 

 same region, a small, j)ossibly batrachian lizard, but an animal of 

 large size. These Prof. Huxley, having fully examined them, finds to 

 be sufficiently well preserved (casts of the outside generally) to serve 

 as secure ground for arguments of analogy, — parts of a jaw, limbs, 

 tjie vertebral column, and ventral and dermal scuta. Judging by 

 these distinct remains, he infers the animal to have had important 

 affinities to the higher Reptiiia, and especially those Crocod'dians, 

 which, like Teleosaurus, had a rich armature of deeply pitted bony 

 scuta covering the whole body. In some particulars, analogy is 

 found to the Deinosaurians ; and though the reptile of the Lossie- 

 mouth quarries is not really a Teleosaunis or a Megaloscmrus, and 

 seems indeed to be of a peculiar combination not previously met 

 mth, stiU it presents enough of correspondence to the mesozoic fauna, 

 and perhaps even to the reptiles of the Oolite, as to awaken some 



* See the maps of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and the Lake district, coloured 

 by W. Smith, 1821—1822, &c. 



t See map by John Euthyen (from data communicated by Sedgwick), in Miss 

 Martineau's ' Griiide to the Lakes.' 



\ On the evening of Nov. 17, 1826, Prof. Sedgwick read to the Geological 

 Society the important paper on the Magnesian Limestone Series of the North 

 of England, which first settled the true relations of that remarkable group of 

 deposits. I was then allowed to attach some paloeontological notes to this work ; 

 and now, after enjoying for so many years Ms unchangmg friendship, I feel the 

 truth of the expression " Est aliquid .... a Diomede legi." 



