President's Address. 



11 



was determined, as far as possible, to avoid, and very early 

 in my diary I find written, " I now give up every theory, 

 and vow only to look at facts." This sentence was written, 

 however, in presence of Bjarnarey, one of the Westmanna 

 Islands, where the contortions of the tuffa were so puzzling 

 that I was unable to form a theory, so I take little credit 

 for this seeming impartiality. On approaching the Faroe 

 Islands one is struck by the grandeur and stateliness with 

 which they rise perpendicularly from the sea, and also with 

 their similarity to many of our own Hebrides. The amyg- 

 daloidal traps alternate with the softer tuffa, precisely as we 

 see them at the Storr and Quirang in Skye. On arriving at 

 Thorshavn, the port and capital of the islands, my first ob- 

 ject was to obtain evidence of the supposed glacial action 

 which had ground and polished many surfaces of rock near 

 to the town. I had little difficulty in finding indications there 

 attributed to northern drift and glacial action, but unfortu- 

 nately they proved to be another instance of the difficulty of 

 ridding ourselves of long-cherished views. These striated 

 surfaces lie at a very small angle to the horizon ; they are 

 smooth, parallel, and regular, and altogether unlike any 

 dressed surfaces I had yet seen. On picking away the moss 

 and earth from the base of a cyclopean stone which lay im- 

 mediately above the ground surfaces, and which was evi- 

 dently in situ, I found that the grooves extended below the 

 moss, and further, that its perpendicular and exposed surface 

 was untouched ; the conclusion was therefore forced upon 

 us that they were merely slickensides grooves caused by the 

 near contact of two rock surfaces, and therefore yielding 

 no proof of drift or glacial action. And while on this sub- 

 ject, permit me to state, that from the fact of no drift having 

 been found either in Iceland or the Faroes, and no dressed 

 or grooved surfaces other than those due to modern glaciers, 

 I have taken up the idea, which I hope either to prove or 

 abandon on a subsequent visit, that instead of these islands 

 bearing evidence of the drift, that their sudden upheaval was 

 the cause of this hitherto unexplained phenomena. 



Another point of considerable interest presented itself in 

 the great abundance of calcedony and zeolites in the cavities 



