Metarnorphism. 403 



on that side, and returned to Church Stretton by the Roman 

 road, the Watling Street. The rest descended gradually the 

 same side they had gone up, and after a pleasant "walk down the 

 valley, reached Church Stretton to partake with the others of 

 a -well-furnished cold dinner, after which the rector of Church 

 Stretton, the Rev. H. 0. Wilson, threw open to the visitors the 

 beautiful and very extensive and ornamental grounds attached 

 to the rectory, which extend up some of the lower slopes of the 

 Longmynd, and formed a very pleasant spot for meeting and 

 conversation after the labours of the day. To those who had 

 returned by way of the Roman road more objects of antiquity 

 had presented themselves than had been seen in the earlier part 

 of the day, and on one of the slopes of these pleasure-grounds 

 I read to them a paper on the Roman roads in Shropshire. The 

 evening was already advanced when I left for Ludlow, quite 

 convinced that the meeting of a field-club is a very agreeable, 

 as well as a very intellectual and instructive, manner of passing 

 a summer's day. 



METAMOEPHISM. 



BY PEOFESSOE AXSTED, M.A., E.E.S. 



If the reader be alarmed at a title so technical as the word 

 Metamoephish let him examine the first piece of Portland or 

 Bath stone that comes in his way, or let him go to the nearest 

 quarry or brick-pit and look at the state of the mineral sub- 

 stances there laid bare. Let him further consider that these 

 stones and clays must certainly have once been mere heaps of 

 shelly sand and mud, confused and impalpable, and that to 

 bring them into their present state they have undergone no 

 external change. Operated on no doubt by the great silent 

 forces of nature that are everywhere present, they also bear no 

 marks whatever of any special modification of structure. He 

 will not fail to perceive that great change has been produced, 

 that shells have become altered, the original material beinsr 

 displaced by crystalline carbonate of lime, that nodules have 

 formed in the clays, that each limestone has a structure of its 

 own by which it may be distinguished from other limestones, 

 and in a word he will everywhere see proofs of some curious 

 transforming agency for which a name is desirable. Let him 

 call this agency metamorphdsm and the change a metamorphosis, 

 that he may be able conveniently to examine, discuss, and 

 understand the alterations that take place in rocks without 

 affecting then external form. 



Should he be able to visit large quarries or observe those 



