XXX PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



on lithological analogies, or even upon the apparent order of super- 

 position ; since it is now well known, that formations frequently lie 

 in inverted positions in those parts of the world wherein the rocks 

 have undergone violent disturbances. 



This triumph of palseontology over all other evidences is indeed 

 the peculiar feature of modern geology ; and M. Pusch was one of 

 the labourers in the field who have been conspicuous in achieving it. 

 His work on the Palaeontology of Poland, published in 1837? was a 

 valuable addition to all that had preceded it, and is much more 

 copious and detailed than the contemporary inquiries of Dubois 

 de Montpereux and Eichwald, who severally described the organic 

 remains of certain parts only of the same country. 



It was for these contributions to physical geology and palasontology, 

 that in the year 1841 M. Pusch was elected a Foreign Member of 

 our Society ; and when it is recollected that he achieved these results 

 in a region remote from those persons who could best aid him, and 

 gave to us an original Map of the subsoil of a previously unclassified 

 country, I may truly say, that few of our honorary associates have 

 had stronger claims upon our grateful remembrance. For the last 

 few years of his life, M. Pusch had been almost exclusively employed 

 in the tedious and oppressive minutiae of the administration of the 

 Polish Mines, particularly in the direction of the Coal works on the 

 eastern or Polish limit of the Silesian coal-field. 



Progress of Geology. 



I will now endeavour to bring before you an outline of some of 

 the more prominent features in the onward movement of the science 

 we cultivate, during the last year. That progress is so rapid, that 

 while it is gratifiying in one sense, it causes a feeling of disappoint- 

 ment almost amounting to despair ; for it outstrips the efforts of the 

 most active and industrious to keep pace with, leaving a conscious- 

 ness that, even within our own domain, if we are to know anything 

 well, we must remain ignorant of much that we should be glad to be 

 acquainted with. And so connected are the various departments of 

 the wide field of Geology, that we are thus constantly doomed to 

 feel the disadvantage of our imperfect acquaintance with other 

 branches of our subject, in working out that which is the special 

 object of our study. 



The separate works and the memoirs contained in periodical pub- 

 lications by the geologists of Europe and of the United States of 

 North America have been so numerous, that I might fill my pages 

 by giving only a summary Catalogue Raisonnee of the subjects 

 treated of ; but as an address so composed would be equally weari- 

 some to me to write and to you to listen to, I have thought it better 

 to follow the same course I did last year, by dwelling on some of those 

 subjects of general interest which are most attractive to myself, and 

 to which consequently I have paid most attention. 1 will however 

 first advert to some of the larger and more general works. 



Among the most valuable of these, I am disposed to name first the 



