3 94 Geological Society. — Anniversary Address. 



of placing these unrivalled collections in our national repository ; 

 where their constant presentation to the view of its thousands of 

 daily visitors cannot fail to attract increasing attention to the won- 

 derful discoveries of Palaeontology. 



These important public events, occurring beyond our walls, and 

 having a direct and immediate tendency to enlarge the field of our 

 labours, form an epoch in the history of our science, and place 

 Geology before the country in a new and more widely popular 

 aspect than it had occupied before. The past year has been also 

 distinguished beyond all precedent, by the number and value of the 

 geological maps it has produced. 



GEOLOGICAL MAP OF CORNWALL AND DEVON. 



The first map which I shall mention, affords another example of 

 the recognition by Government of the importance of our subject, 

 by their having attached a geological department to the Ordnance 

 Survey of England and Wales. The first fruits of this appoint- 

 ment are the splendid Maps of Devon and Cornwall, and a part of 

 Somerset, coloured after the surveys of Mr. De la Beche ; and it 

 may be truly said of them, that they are more beautiful in their 

 execution, more accurate in their details, and more instructive in 

 the ceconomical and scientific information they give respecting 

 mines, than any maps yet published by any government in the 

 world ; affording documents to which we can at length with pride 

 appeal, in reply to the reproach that has so long, with too much 

 truth, been cast upon us, that England alone, of all the civilized 

 nations, has abandoned to gratuitous individual exertions, and the 

 liberality of amateurs in science, the great work of exploring and 

 delineating the mineral structure of the country ; and ascertaining 

 the nature and extent of the subterraneous produce, which lies at 

 the foundation of the industry of its manufacturing population, 

 and to which the nation owes no small portion of its wealth. 



The statistical importance of this first portion of the Ordnance 

 Geological Map of England will be duly appreciated only by those, 

 who know the extent of the property embarked in the mining inter- 

 ests of the Western counties, and are aware that the annual value 

 of the mineral produce of Cornwall and Devon alone has recently 

 amounted to 1,340,000/. 



In the chapter on GEconomic Geology, which forms part of the 

 Memoir connected with his Map of Cornwall and Devon, Mr. De 

 la Beche has placed, in a more prominent light than has ever yet 

 appeared, the bearing of geological researches and mineral statistics 

 upon political ceconomy ; and proves, by tabular documents, the 

 important fact, that the average value of the annual produce of the 

 mines of the British Islands amounts to the enormous sum of 

 20,000,000/.*, of which about 8,000,000/. arise from iron, and 

 9,000,000/ from coal. 



* See Geological Report on Devon and Cornwall, p. 624, and note, 1839. 

 In this estimate the value of the copper is taken in the ore, before fusion ; 



