XXviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Conybeare spoke with diffidence of his having brought before the 

 Society a paper on such minute palaeontology, it cannot be doubted 

 that the interest connected with the discovery of the existence and 

 workings of minute marine animals at so remote an epoch is of a 

 very high order. The flints and other siliceous deposits of the chalk 

 and other geological epochs, have indeed been striking examples of 

 the effect of judicious investigation in rendering the most obscure 

 objects the means of throwing light upon natural phenomena. 



Mr. Conybeare was fully aware of the necessity of studying phy- 

 sical as well as organic phenomena in connexion with geological 

 science ; and it is truly surprising how often the intimate connexion 

 of the physical geography of remote epochs with their natural his- 

 tory is overlooked. His description of the land-slip which occurred 

 on the coast of Culverhole Point, near Axmouth, in December 1839, 

 w r as ably illustrated by a series of lithographic plates from the draw- 

 ings of the present Lieut. -Colonel Dawson ; and the magnitude of 

 the results was well expressed by the following words : — " Although 

 this convulsion can only be ascribed to the less dignified agency of 

 the land-springs constantly undermining the sub-strata, yet, in the 

 grandeur of the disturbances it has occasioned, it far exceeds the 

 ravages of the earthquakes of Calabria, and almost rivals the vast 

 volcanic fissures of the Yal del Bove on the flanks of iEtna." With- 

 out doubt these phenomena are very striking and interesting in 

 themselves ; but they become still more so when we reflect, as Mr. 

 Kobert Mallet has taught us to do, that they ought not to be con- 

 fined to the existing epoch alone, but should be sought for in the 

 stony records of past ages. The paper on the Hydrographical Basin 

 of the Thames, written with a view to determine the causes which 

 had operated in forming ,the Valleys of the Thames and its tribu- 

 tary streams, is equally valuable as tending to maintain the value 

 of attending to physical geography in geological investigations. His 

 examination, also, of the Theory of Mountain-chains, then recently 

 propounded by M. Elie de Beaumont, as well as his remarks on the 

 phaenomena of geology which most directly bear on theoretical specu- 

 lations, are proofs of the truly philosophical and enlarged view he 

 took of his favourite science. 



In noticing the works of Dr. Buckland, I have already detailed the 

 importance of the paper w T hich was compiled by him in conjunction 

 with Mr. Conybeare, on the Bristol and South Welsh Coal-fields ; 

 one, as I then observed, of those elaborate and comprehensive papers 

 which were the fitting work of the first pioneers of geological science, 

 and the difficulty of which can scarcely be appreciated in these times 

 when the foundations of the science have been fairly laid, and geo- 

 logists have only to improve or correct the details. His remarks on 

 the sections of the Antrim and Deny coast were also a conjoint work, 

 and of much interest. 



Another and equally remarkable work was that undertaken in con- 

 junction with the late Mr. William Phillips, namely, the ' Outlines of 

 the Geology of England and Wales,' as it may be considered the first 

 systematic work on the subject ; and, though geology has been since 



