196 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
secondly, express a hope that the fact of the recognition of this body as 
the "Ixoyal Geological Society of Ireland" may incite the Fellows to still 
further exertions in the cause of their favourite science. In conclusion, 
the council desire to tender their most sincere thanks to Lord Talbot de 
Malahide, to whose kindness they consider themselves mainly indebted 
for the successful issue to which their application has been brought. 
They would also express their warmest acknowledgments to Mr. Robert 
Mallet, F.E.S., who, though no longer resident in Dublin, is still unremit- 
ting in his interest in the society, of which he has been so long a distin- 
guished member, and whose unceasing exertions in regard of this special 
accession of dignity to it have at last been crowned with success : — 
" WhitehaU, March 28, 1864<. 
" My Lord, — I have had the honour to lay before the Queen the petition, 
transmitted in your letter of the 17lh instant, of certain members of the Greolo- 
gical Society of Dublin, on behalf of that Society, and I am to inform your 
Lordship that her Majesty has been graciously pleased to comply with the prayer 
of the petition, and to signify her desire that the Greological Society of Dubhn be 
henceforth called ' The Eoyal Geological Society of Ireland,' and that the mem- 
bers thereof be styled ' Fellows of the Eoyal Geological Society of Ireland.' I 
am commanded by her Majesty to convey to the Society her thanks for the copy 
of the Journal of their proceedings, forwarded by your Lordship, which has been 
placed in the Eoyal Library at Windsor. — I hare the honoiu' to be, my Lord, 
vour Lordship's obedient servant, (Signed) " G. Geey. 
" The Lord Talbot de Malahide." 
Mr. Ormsby read a paper on " A Polished and Striated Surface in the 
Limestone of Eoss Hill, County Gal way." On the Midland Railway, 
between Gal way and Oranmore, there is a low range of hills, over which 
the line passes nearly at the surface of the ground. Some time since it 
was thought expedient to lower the road here to improve the gradients. 
When the surface clay was removed, a large portion of the top of the rock, 
for upwards of three hundred yards in length, was found to be brightly 
polished, grooved, and striated. Several borings were then made in the 
fields on each side, and different results obtained; but they all showed 
that the surface of the limestone beneath was smoothed and polished over 
a very considerable area. In various places in the rock were deep grooves, 
as if a plough had been driven over it, the cuts having in some cases sharp, 
jagged edges and a bold outline, — in others, soft, gentle slopes, like ripple 
marks on a sandstone. These deepci- grooves and the principal stria? 
were in a direction nearly parallel to the railway, or magnetic east and 
west, while a series of minor striations run north-east and south-west. The 
former seem to be due to the violent rubbing of ice, most probably in the 
form of a glacier, and the latter may be ascribed to the subsequent action 
of the drift. 
Mr. Jukes said that the society was indebted to Mr. Ormsby for the 
care with which he had investigated the subject, to which his own attention 
had been drawn by Mr. Ormsby in the course of last winter. He had 
lately visited the locahty himself, and he could only say that the pheno- 
menon was much more striking on a large scale than could be supposed 
from the inspection of a hand specimen. Surfaces fifty or sixty yards in 
length were laid bare, quite smooth, and dipping at a uniform angle of 
about half a degree. These smooth surfaces had been covered with clay, 
and their appearance was very different from that of surfaces which had 
been long exposed, showing how the erosive action of the air destroyed the 
markings of the direct action of ice. He (Mr. Jukes) did not know whe- 
