33 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



devoted himself to geological researches with an ability, a persistent zeal, 

 and untiring perseverance which place him amongst the foremost of those 

 eminent men by whose genius, sagacity, and labours the science of Geology 

 has attained its present high position. To duly appreciate his earlier 

 work as a geological observer and reasoner, we must recall to recollection 

 the comparative ignorance which prevailed forty or fifty years ago, to the 

 dispersion of which his labours have so largely contributed. Geology was 

 then beset by wild and untenable speculations on the one hand, whilst on 

 the other even its most calm and rational theories were received by many 

 with distrust or with ridicule — and by others with aversion, as likely to 

 interfere with those convictions on which the best hopes of man repose. 



Under such circumstances Geology needed the support and open advo- 

 cacy of men who, by their intellect and acquirements, and by the respect 

 attached to their individual characters, their profession, or social position, 

 might be able on the one hand to repress wild fancies, and on the 

 other to rebut the unfounded assertions of those who opposed the dis- 

 cussion of scientific truth. Such a man was Professor Sedgwick, and 

 such was the influence he exerted. It may be well to make this allusion 

 on an occasion like the present, because it often happens, not unnaturally, 

 that those who are most occupied with the questions of the day, in an ad- 

 vancing science, retain but an imperfect recollection of the obligations due 

 to those who laid the first foundation of our subsequent knowledge. 



More than forty years have passed since Professor Sedgwick began 

 those researches among the older rocks of England which it became the 

 main purpose of his life to complete. In 1822 was begun that full and 

 accurate survey of the Magnesian Limestone of the North of England 

 which to this day holds its high place in the estimation of geologists as the 

 foundation of our knowledge of this important class of deposits, whether 

 we regard their origin, form of deposition, peculiarities of structure, or 

 organic contents. 



Contemporaneously with this excellent work, he examined the Whin 

 Sill of Upper Teesdale, showed its claims to be treated as a rock of fusion, 

 and discussed the perplexed question of its origin. 



Advancing to one of the great problems which occupied his thoughts 

 for many years, he combined in 1831 the observations of the older rocks 

 of the Lake Mountains which he had commenced in 1822, and added a 

 special memoir on the great dislocations by which they are sharply defined 

 and separated from the Pennine chain of Yorkshire. Memoirs followed 

 in quick succession on the New Red Sandstone of the Vale of Eden ; on 

 the stratified and unstratified rocks of the Cumbrian Mountains, and on 

 the Limestone and Granite Veins near Shap. Thus, thirty years since, 

 before the names of Cambrian and Silurian were ever heard, under which 

 we now thankfully class the strata of the English lakes, those rocks had 

 been vigorously assailed and brought into a lucid order and system which 

 is to this day unchanged, though by the game hands which laid the 



