ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. CXXX1X 



totally dissimilar to tlie bed which marks the character of its natural 

 habitat, it cannot be received as any other than an extraneous fossil, 

 and ought to be rejected from the list of characteristic fossils. In 

 geology there should be no spirit of partisanship, as the object is 

 not to support the territorial rights of formations, but to arrive at 

 truth. Such, I am sure, is the object of Professor Buckman ; and, 

 as he promises hereafter to offer further remarks on the physical 

 conformation of the Oolitic district he has described, we may expect 

 that this question will then be finally settled. In like manner, I 

 am satisfied that Dr. "Wright, when convinced that he has, in this 

 particular case, been led into error, will frankly admit it. 



A paper by Professor D. T. Ansted on the geology of the Southern 

 part of Andalusia, between Gibraltar and Almeria, brings the Jurassic 

 beds under notice, with some little variations in the physical charac- 

 ters of the rocks with which they are associated. Having described 

 the mica-schists of the Sierra Nevada, he states that in the north- 

 west they are overlaid by a crystalline limestone, on which repose 

 thick beds of tertiary marls. Beds of shale in some places are inter- 

 polated between the schists and the limestones ; and near Malaga they 

 pass into a conglomerate, and then into triassic and Jurassic beds. 

 The old schists and the shales are traversed by serpentine-veins, 

 which, in the absence of fossils, serve as a proof of their general 

 identity. East of Malaga the Professor observed a black foetid 

 magnesian limestone (distinct from the true dolomites), which under- 

 lies shales and sandstones, the upper grit-bed containing Calamites 

 or Equisetites. This limestone he considered the equivalent, as 

 regards position, of the conglomerates between the shales and sand- 

 stones above mentioned ; but as the first-named shales were said 

 to pass into the conglomerate, and at the same time were closely 

 connected by the serpentine-veins with the mica-schists, there ap- 

 pears much complexity, as might have been expected, in these partial 

 (or at least locally-studied) deposits. 



The limestones of the Sierra de Gador pass towards the west into 

 the light- coloured limestones of Gibraltar, and are considered Jurassic, 

 — a red marble at San Anton being probably Cretaceous, and an over- 

 lying calcareous breccia the base of the Tertiary series. On this 

 latter rock rests another limestone of oolitic structure, but associated 

 with a Nummulitic rock. All these are followed by a series of Upper 

 Tertiary strata, the lower beds rich in Eoraminifera, and the others 

 exhibiting one of those curious alternations of land and freshwater 

 fossils, with beds abounding in the most marked marine fossils. The 

 more recent raised sea-beaches close the geological details of Pro- 

 fessor Ansted's paper; but, as his great object in visiting Spain 

 appears to have been the investigation of its mineral treasures, I 

 may observe that irregular deposits of argentiferous copper occur in 

 the mica- schist, that galena is found in the first-mentioned crystal- 

 line limestone, that copper-ore is also found in the beds of shale 

 (which is another link between them and the mica-schist), and, finally, 

 that enormous deposits of galena are found in fissures which traverse 

 the supposed Jurassic limestones, — results which sufficiently prove 



