ANNIVERSABY ABDEES8 OF THE PRESIDENT. 43 



cuted the investigation of the old glaciers of Wales, and by publish- 

 ing his results largely contributed to give that impetus to the 

 progress of this branch of geology which was perhaps the most 

 marked feature of the advance of British geology during his life. 



Connected with his glacial work, and indeed arising naturally 

 out of it, there was another department of enquiry which always 

 had for E,amsay a peculiar fascination — the history of the topo- 

 graphical features of a country. Others before him had been exer- 

 cised by the peculiar difficulties of the problems presented by these 

 features, and had offered various more or less plausible solutions of 

 them. But to him, more than to any ather writer, do we owe the 

 resuscitation of this subject and the convergence upon it of a large 

 experience in the examination alike of existing geological processes 

 and of the relation between the form of the ground and the struc- 

 ture and disposition of the rocks underneath it. As far back as 

 his early years in Wales, his attention had been drawn to such 

 questions, and we have the results given by him in that first and 

 most remarkable essay in the Survey Memoirs, ' On the Denudation 

 of South Wales.' Eew such suggestive papers have appeared in the 

 literature of our science. It opened up a new world of possible 

 geological enquiry. 



Later in time, as his thoughts became more concentrated upon 

 the phenomena of glaciation, his attention was arrested by the 

 existence of lakes in old and existing glacier-districts, and by the 

 evident proofs that many of these lakes lie in strongly ice-worn 

 rock-basins. He noted the abundance of such lakes in regions 

 which either nourish glaciers now, or can be shown to have done so 

 formerly ; while, on the other hand, he was struck with the com- 

 parative scarcity and even frequent absence of lakes from districts 

 where probably no glaciers ever existed. Pondering on this subject, 

 he evolved his famous doctrine that the glaciated rock-basins in 

 certain districts had been eroded by the grinding action of glacier- 

 ice. His views, which had been shaping themselves for some years, 

 during his constant study of glacial phenomena, at last took shape 

 in the well-known paper read to this Society in the year 1862. So 

 strong was the opposition to his conclusions, especially among the 

 older and more influential members of the Society's Council, that, as 

 I have been told, had he not himself been at the time President of 

 the Society, the paper would certainly have been rejected. Into 

 the controversy which he raised, and which is not yet closed, I do 

 not propose to enter here. I would remark that whether or not we 



