44 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



agree with the doctrine maintained in this paper, we must admit 

 that its publication has stimulated investigation in a most remark- 

 able degree. The very opposition which the author's conclusions 

 evoked excited an interest in glacial geology, and led into that branch 

 of the science many observers who might otherwise never have 

 entered it. Attention was called in this way to other collateral 

 subjects of enquiry, and thus the tide of research in glacial matters 

 was kept full and flowing. 



But besides the question of the origin of lakes, Eamsay had long 

 meditated upon the whole subject of the shaping of terrestrial 

 features. To him, as to all who were then thinking of these 

 questions, Jukes's ever-memorable essay on the Eiver Valleys of the 

 South of Ireland came as the revelation of a new method of 

 geological enquiry, opening out boundless possibilities of successful 

 research into the origin of scenery. He was not slow in availing 

 himself of the aid thus afforded. Prom time to time, up to the 

 close of his official life, he seemed to find recreation in trying 

 to trace back the history of the present landscapes of the country. 

 At one time we find him following the stages by which Anglesey 

 became an island. At another we listen as he tells us the story of 

 the ' sacred Dee.' Again, he leads us backward to the time when 

 the Thames began to flow and the valleys of the South-east of 

 England took their present trend. 



If there was one aspect which, beyond the charm of their 

 freshness and accuracy, marked the writings of our distinguished 

 associate, it was, I think, their remarkable suggestiveness. As we 

 read them we seem to be led onward beyond the written words to 

 ideas and applications of ideas which may never have been present 

 to his mind, but which, as they rise before us, impress us with a 

 sense of his genius in penetrating so far and with such happy 

 instinct along the path of fruitful enquiry. As an illustration of 

 this faculty I would especially refer to his Presidential Addresses to 

 this Society on ' Breaks in the Succession of the British Strata.' 

 This subject had been long in his mind ; for he had, so far back as 

 1856, chosen it as the subject of an address to the Geological 

 Section of the British Association. When he resumed it before 

 this Society he could treat it with a fuUness of knowledge derived 

 from an intimate personal acquaintance with the whole range of 

 the geological record in this country, and with the breadth of 

 outlook which the publication of Darwin's ' Origin of Species ' 

 had then made possible. As a teacher of geology he had few 



