170 
THE GICOLOGIST. 
The rapid progress of the colony since this discovery was familiar to eveiyone, 
and the history of the gold-nugget trade would display prominently the value of 
obsei-vant hahits. The lecturer then described the various large nuggets which 
had been brought into this countiy, tlie largest being fuur feet two inches long by 
ten inches witle. This was melted and produced fine gold of the value of 6,905^ 
lis. 9d., only twenty-one ounces of stony matter remaining. 
Diamonds in the rough state had been thrown aside by the gold-seekers, and 
many other valuable substances were frequently wasted in ignorance of their 
nat(n-e and properties. 
The most interesting j)art of mineralogy was ciystallography, and the lecturer 
gave illustrations of the methods of distinguishing crystals Ity their forms, fracture, 
frangibility, degrees of hardness, &c. 
Some specimens of ciyolit*, from Greenland, were exhibited, to show the 
importance of the study of mineralogy, in developing the nreans of cheapening 
usefid conuuodities. Aluminium, at the time of tlie Paris Exhibition, could not 
be obtained for less than 41. per ounce. It was soon afterwards oft'ereil for '21. per 
ounce ; but, since cryoline had been used, it was reduced to less tlian 15i. per 
ounce. This was an im))ortant metal, and although hitherto only known as a 
curiosity in the laboratory, would probably, before long, become of the highest 
commercial importance. 
The lecturer concluded with some statistical accounts of the values and annual 
produce of the chief British minerals. 
Malvern Natural History Field-Club. — The annual meeting of this 
Club was held on the 21st ult., at the Museum of the Club, in Malvern, when the 
President, the Rev. W. S. Synionds, of Pendock, delivered the annual address. 
Mr. Bymonds recorded with deep soitow the loss the Society had sustained 
during tlie last year by the death of two of their most active and distinguished 
members—the Rev. T. T. Lewis and the Rev. F. Dyson. Sir Roderick Murchison, 
in his new edition of "Siluria," renders a full acknowledgment of the valuable 
assistance he received from Mr. Lewis in the foundation and establishment of 
" the Silurian system." The life-long conduct of such men as Mr. Lewis and Mr. 
Dyson will ever prove an important refutation to the iielief, sometimes entertained, 
of the incompatibility of the pursuit of science with I'eligious energy and duty ; 
inasnuich as the departed were well known as faithful ministers of the Gos])el, 
who, while they loved the study of nat\ire, as the exponent of the vast and varied 
]>lans of the Divine Mind, did not make science, as some do, their idol, nor exalt 
])hilosophy above those nobler principles, the moral relations of man to God. 
Mr. Symonds entered at some length into the mineralogy of the Malverns, and 
their microsco])ic crystallography. 
Speaking of the Cambrian rocks, he said, — You will, I am sure, allow me to 
take this opportunity of congratulating an illustrious honorary member of our 
Society, Sir R. I. Murchison, upon the publication of his new and long-expected 
edition of "Sihu-ia;" and perhaps you will allow that I have not chosen an 
iniillustrative point in my address, at which to offer om congratidations, when I 
tell you that Sir Roderick has rendered a very important addition to the records 
of geology, by the discovery of a series of sedimentary deposits of more ancient 
date than those rocks of the Longmynd, in Slu-opshire, of North Wales, and of 
L-eland, which we have Itcen accustomed to term Cambrian. These oldest 
known sedimentary rocks occur on the north-west coast of Scotland, and are un- 
conformably surmounted by mountain masses of conglomerates and sandstones, 
now known to be of Cambrian age, and the equivalents in time of the Longmynd 
and N(jrth Welsh deposits. This lowest Camlirian deposit is a gneiss. 
On reading Sir R. Murchison's account of this most ancient gneiss, some time 
ago, I determined to examine closely certain stratified deposits which are in con- 
tact with the Malvern syenite, to which Sir R. Murchison alludes (in " Siluria," 
p. 103), as consisting of " chloritic schists, quartzite, and highly micaceous schists, 
almost j)assing into gneiss." For this purpose, I have twice explored the whole 
length of the tunnel near Malvern Wells, and have given particular attention to 
certain schistose rocks on the Swinyard, Midsummer, and Ragged-stone Hills, at 
