rem 4 
SS Fe eee eee ee 
508 H. HICKS ON THE PRE-CAMBRIAN 
to expect, as further researches were being prosecuted in this and 
other areas. The growth of the question, so fraught with difficulties 
at first from its novelty and from the want of that special know- 
ledge which time and experience alone can give, has been, I readily 
confess, ‘‘a process of development during a course of years.” Ot 
this I am not in the slightest degree ashamed ; for as my sole object 
has been to arrive at the truth concerning these rocks, I have always 
been anxious to correct errors when made. clear, as the result of fuller 
information, and also when they have been pointed out at any 
time by those whose special experience enabled them to do so. 
The additional information now submitted has been gradually 
accumulated since my last paper was read in 1879; and it was 
reserved only that it might be placed in as complete a manner as 
possible before the Society. 
The paper on the Rocks of St. David’s, communicated to the Society 
by the Director-General of the Geological Survey, in March and 
April of last year, has compelled me to. re-examine and therefore to 
refer again to many points which otherwise I should not have 
thought it necessary to trouble the Society with, believing that they 
had been sufficiently dealt with and satisfactorily proved, either in my 
previous papers or in communications dealing with similar questions, 
by such experienced observers as Prof. Bonney, Prof. Hughes, and 
others. The Director-General in his paper says that he entered upon 
this controversy with extreme reluctance, “‘ but it was from a sense 
of duty that he came forward and defended the views of his prede- 
cessors.””* It seems reasonable to suppose, however, that before 
claiming the work of his predecessors as correct, which had been done 
so very many years before, when these questions had not arisen, 
he would have seriously analyzed any apparently conflicting evidence 
brought forward since then, and also that, in the face of recent 
knowledge obtained by new methods of investigation, he would 
have endeavoured to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the 
nature and behaviour of these rocks in all the Welsh areas, and have 
visited all places of importance where information could haye been 
obtained. Had he done this it would, it may be presumed, haye 
prevented him from making very many of the statements contained 
in his paper, and of committing the serious errors which lam 
compelled now, in self-defence, to point out. 
As the controversy now stands, it must necessarily appear that 
the views of the Survey, as expounded by its chief, ave entirely at 
variance with those held outside the Survey, by those who have, 
of recent years, devoted all their time to the examination of the 
Pre-Cambrian questions in Britain. This is, to say the least of it, 
an unfortunate circumstance, since necessarily any alterations in the 
Geological maps can only be done through the Survey, and unless 
such corrections are made from time to time as new information is 
forthcoming, the maps soon become almost valueless. 
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxix. p. 333. 
