158 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



deposits and the Old Red are finely displayed; and Mr. Symonds, P.G.S., the 

 president of the Malvern Club, here delivered an oration on the position of the 

 beds and their fossil contents. 



Nowhere in the world was there, he thought, such a fine exhibition of 

 ,c passage-beds" as here; and they incontestibly proved that there was a gra- 

 dual transition from the Upper Ludlow Rocks of the Silurian system to the 

 Old Red, and no sudden break with the entire destruction of organic life in 

 the more ancient system, as had been formerly supposed. Mr. Symonds then 

 remarked on the peculiar bucklered fish whose remains were embedded in the 

 grey and red marls of this section, particularly the Auchenaspis ; portions had 

 also been detected of the JPlectodus, Cephalaspis, JPteraspis and Onchus. These 

 were all now extinct, and their only analogies were to be found in some of the 

 rivers and lakes of North America. 



Mr. Lees, the Yice-President, delivered the annual address, and took a 

 review of the chief books on scientific subjects which had been published during 

 the past year, remarking on the great tendency of the authors to theorise 

 instead of, like Owen and Agassiz, carefully arguing only from undoubted facts. 

 The former philosophical observer had declared that the result of his palseon- 

 tological studies proved the continued exertion of creative energy from the 

 earliest to the latest strata that had yielded their osseous remains to his view ; 

 but that all past races of animals belonged to the divisions now known to 

 naturalists : nor was there any reason to believe that anything would be dis- 

 covered that was different in general technical character to what naturalists 

 were at present acquainted with. 



Mr. Lees then took a searching review of Darwin's recent volume on " The 

 the Origin of Species," and pointed out what he considered to be the fallacy of 

 that writer's views, which he considered were merely a variation of the exploded 

 theory of Lamarck, who had supposed the origin of every organic being in land 

 and water from two nomadic forms. No practical benefit was gained by 

 supposing that all existing species were varieties of what had pre-existed ; and 

 that minute variation now appearing and accumulating would in like manner, 

 in a long period of time, change everything again. 



In conclusion, Mr. Lees strongly urged the avoidance of all fanciful theory, 

 and steadily keeping within the bounds of truthful observation. If they might 

 not go so far as St. Piesse, as to say that he who had not studied nature knew 

 not what real enjoyment was, yet they would fully agree with Humboldt that in 

 the contemplation of her grandeur and freedom existed the purest delight that 

 a divine intelligence had designed for the enjoyment of man. 



At this meeting the Rev. R. R. Hill was elected Honorary Secretary of the 

 Malvern Field Club, in the place of Mr. Burrow, who had filled the office since 

 the formation of the club. 



^ The next meeting was on September 21, at the Plough Inn, at Longdon. 

 The members proceeded by Queenhill Church and through the grounds of Pale 

 Courl to Sammll, a Lias outlier, in the valley of New Red Sandstone, which 

 in f bis district stretches along the line of the Malvern straits. Hence the club 

 returned through the Pale Court gardens, by permission of Mr. Dowderwell, 

 Lo Mr. Stower al Chambers Court where Captain Guise delivered an instruc- 

 I ive address. He was followed by Dr. Lankester, the well-known lecturer, on 

 the Darwinian theory. 



( The third and last meeting was held at Malvern Hills, on October 9th. The 

 President , and anol her gentleman, accompanied by Mr. Allan Lambert, one of the 

 engineers on the W orcester and Hereford Railway went through the tunnel, but 

 bheir account of the wet and did to be encountered deterred the other members 

 Prom descending, a move was therefore made through the cutting of the Wyeh 

 to the shaft on the western side of the hills, where large heaps of "spoil" had 



