2 Sir R. I. Murchison’s Address on the 
alluvium of the works of man with the reliquize of extinct ani- 
mals as their meritorious discoverer, M. Boucher de Perthes, or 
as their expounders, Prestwich, Lyell and others. I may, how- 
ever, express my gratification in learning that our own See? | 
is now affording proofs of similar intermixture both in Bedfo 
shire, Lincolnshire, and other counties: and, possibly, at this 
meeting we may have to record additional evidences on this 
highly interesting topic. 
But I pass at once from any consideration of these recent ac- 
cumulations, and, indeed, of all Tertiary rocks; 
space of time only is at my disposal, I will now lay before you 
only a concise retrospect of the progress which has latterly been 
made in the development of one great branch of our science. 
confine myself, then, to the consideration of those primeval 
rocks with which my own researches have for many years been 
most connected, with a few allusions only, to metamorphism, 
and certain metalliferous productions, &c. 
There is, indeed, a peculiar fitness in now dwelling more 
especially on the ancient rocks, inasmuch as Manchester is sur- 
rounded by some of them, whilst, with the exception of certain 
groups of erratic blocks and drifts, no deposits occur within the 
reach of short excursions from hence, which are either of Second- 
ary or Tertiary age 
Let us, then, take a retrospective view of the progress which 
has been made in the classification and delineation of the older 
rocks since the Association first assembled at York, in 1881. 
At that time, as every old geologist knows, no attem mpt had 
been’ made to unravel the order or characters of the formations 
which arise from beneath the Old Red Sandstone. In that year 
Sedgwick was only beginning to make his first inroads into 
those mountains of North Wales, the intricacies of which he 
finally so well elaborated, whilst - only brought to that, our 
earliest assembly, the first fruits of observations in Hereford- 
shire, Brecon, Radnor, and Siceahine which led me to work 
ermian were not dreamt of, but, acting on the true Baconian 
principle, their founders and their coadjutors have, after years 
of toil and comparison, set up such plain landmarks on geo- 
ogical horizons that they have been recognized over many a 
ch 
upon the admirable original classification of our father, William 
Smith, ; and see cae striking difference between the then existing 
knowledge and our present acquirements. It is not too much 
to say that, when the British Association first met, all the re- 
gion on both ‘Sides of the > border, and extending to the 
su: 
SS ORS 
