ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XX1X 
of producing them, as we now find them. These conditions suppose 
dry land and seas of various depths, as at present, and therefore the 
view of Mr. Nicol, that in the district he describes the older paleeozoie 
rocks may have formed such a portion of dry land, clothed with an 
appropriate vegetation and inhabited by fittmg animals, while the 
old red sandstone was accumulating around it, may be considered 
as a fair inference from facts. Indeed it seems needful to extend 
this view to other parts of the British Islands at the same period, 
and even to suppose the sea to increase in depth in the direction of 
Devonshire and Cornwall, so that while shingles were accumulating 
round the dry lands, sands and mud were there drifted. The re- 
searches, begun by Mr. Griffiths, which have shown that the probable 
equivalents of certain North Devonian beds are found in Southern 
Ireland above the old red conglomerate, bear out this view. Mr. 
Nicol, while pointing out the absence of fragments of the so-called 
primary rocks in the older paleeozoic rocks of the valley of the 
Tweed, infers that the igneous agencies which metamorphosed the 
rocks of the Scottish Highlands mto gneiss and mica-slate also 
crushed and folded the older palzeozoic rocks of the Tweed; and as 
fragments of the gneiss and mica-slates are included in the old red 
sandstone series of Central Scotland, that this happened at the time 
before-mentioned, namely anterior to the formation of the old red 
sandstone.’ When we regard the evidence respecting the intrusion 
of the granite of South-Eastern Ireland, connect it with the altera- 
tion of the rocks m contact with the granite, and look to the probable 
date of such intrusion, as far at least as known researches would 
seem to give it, other portions of the area now occupied by the 
British Islands would appear to have been exposed to similar 
geological action at the same period. We must not hence infer 
that all the British granitic intrusions were of the same date, for there 
is good evidence to show that the protrusion of the Devonian and 
Cornish granites was effected at a subsequent period, one posterior 
to the formation of at least a part of the paleeozoic coal-measures, 
and probably to all those in our islands. 
We cannot avoid calling attention to the striking general resem- 
blance between the conglomerate accumulations of the old red 
sandstone around and over the upheaved and contorted beds of the 
older paleeozoic rocks, and that of the new red sandstone series of 
England around and over the upturned and often bent and contorted 
beds of the newer palzeozoic rocks, and indeed upon the upturned 
edges of the old red sandstones themselves. In like manner we have 
to infer dry land, with its coasts broken into bays and headlands, 
seas of different depths, the deposits in which were charged with per- 
oxide of iron, and conditions unfavourable for the entombment and 
probably the existence of animal life in such seas. For both we 
have to suppose submergence of the land, and an accumulation of 
shingles over shingles upon coasts, as also occasionally conditions per- 
mitting the protrusion of shingle-banks far outwards. ‘The extent 
to which all parts of the land may have descended is not clear ; 
portions may here and there have remained from that time to the 
