ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xi 
been removed by denuding action, or remain concealed beneath the 
sea and more modern deposits, that it may be difficult to assign 
any marked interval of subsequent repose over more than minor por- 
tions of the general area of the British Islands, especially as we have 
had igneous action exerted in it at various geological times, up to 
that of the tertiary deposits mclusive. Great protrusions of granite 
have even happened at more than one time since. However this 
may be, we appear to have nothing so marked for the distribution 
and accumulation of volcanic ashes, and possibly also of pumice 
and lapilli, ground down by breakers to fine sediment on the coasts, 
as at this period. Though ashes were also abundantly scattered 
and arranged into beds in the area now occupied by Cornwall 
and Devon, and possibly also by a continuation of the same beds 
beneath the eastern coverig of more modern rocks, when the de- 
posits termed Devonian were formed, their accumulation does not 
appear to have been on so great a scale. It does not follow that 
more molten rocks may not have been ejected, for viewing the varia- 
tions in volcanic action, it by no means follows that the amount of 
ashes and lapilli, driven off by the force of vapour and gases, bears a 
proportion to the molten matter heaved up and ejected. 
It may here be convenient to mention a notice by Mr. Logan of 
the discovery of coal in Junk-Ceylon, one of the islands on the coast 
of the Malay peninsula, where it was stated to occur in a bed three 
feet thick ; as also another notice by Mr. Bellot on the coal of Labuan, 
and on that of the east coast of Borneo. We shall have occasion to 
refer to the Labuan coals in the sequel, and it will here only be neces- 
sary to observe, that the geological age of both the a and Borneo 
coals is still uncertain. 
Regarding the movements which mineral masses may have sus- 
tained subsequently to their accumulation, we have first to notice 
a communication by Mr. Smith, of Jordan Hill, on recent depres- 
sions of the land. He subdivides the “human period into the present, 
or that in which geological events are subjected to our own observa- 
tion; the historical, or that in which they have been observed and 
recorded ; and the antiquarian, in which, although we cannot assign a 
date to them, we can prove from human remains or works of art that 
they must have taken place since the earth was mhabited by man.’ 
Mr. Smith first notices the movements of the temple of Serapis 
at Puzzuoli, which have often engaged the attention of observers, 
and in our own country that of Mr. Lyell, Professor Forbes (of 
Edinburgh) and Mr. Babbage, and which though so far local as to 
be referable to the causes and consequences of volcanic action in the 
vicinity of Naples, still possess considerable interest from the changes 
im the relative level of sea and land, which they prove may take place 
during the lapse of a very short time, considered geologically. The 
memoir of Mr. Babbage on the temple of Serapis, though read before 
this Society so far back as 1834, will be fresh in its recollection, since 
it was only published in the last volume of our Journal. In a note 
to that communication, dated during the past year, Mr. Babbage, 
referring to his views respecting the effects which may be produced 
