3fifty l^eare Geological IResearcb in tbc 
Bristol District 1862*1911. 
By S. H. Reynolds, M.A., Sc.D., F.G.S. 
HE varied character of the geology of the Bristol district 
± has led to the publication of a very large number of papers 
dealing with this subject. In the appendix to H. B. Woodward's 
'Geology of the East Somerset and Bristol Coalfield' (1876) a 
chronological list of 750 is given, up to and inclusive of the year 
1S75, and in the lists published in the last and present numbers 
of the Bristol Naturalists' Society's Proceedings 466 more are 
enumerated. Of this total of 1,216 papers, 755 come within the 
period under consideration. 
In a brief summary of the kind here attempted only the out- 
standing papers can be alluded to. It seems best for purposes of 
description to sub-divide the period approximately into decades. 
The year 1864 is noteworthy in the history of geological research 
in the West of England for the meeting of the British Association 
at Bath, and for the publication of William Sanders' geological 
map of the Bristol Coalfield. The completion of this map, pub- 
lished in nineteen folio sheets, is a marvellous achievement for one 
man. It must be remembered that Sanders had not, like the 
modern field geologist, the accurate 6-inch Ordnance Survey topo- 
graphical maps to work on, but had to produce his own maps by 
reducing 220 parish maps to the 4-inch scale. The Bath meeting of 
the British Association was under the presidency of Sir Charles 
Lyell, and his address had a strong local bearing, being largely 
concerned with the hot springs of Bath. 
The Senior Secretary of the Geological Section at the Bath 
meeting was Charles Moore, who in the long list of illustrious 
geologists who have studied the rocks of the south-west of Eng- 
land will assuredly always hold a foremost place, both for the 
importance of his discoveries, and for the stimulating effect of his 
enthusiasm on other workers. Much of his work belongs to an 
earlier or to a later period than the eight years now under con- 
sideration, but within this period come his well-known papers on 
'The Middle and Upper Lias of the S.W. of England' 1 (1867) 
and that on ' Abnormal Secondary Deposits in Somerset and South 
Wales' 2 (1867). The latter paper, in which he proved the 
Liassie age of the curious crystalline limestones which are met 
with at Shepton Mallet and elsewhere, resting on the Carboni- 
ferous Limestone, may be considered a classic. 
Dr. T. Wright, of Cheltenham, best known for his work on 
Jurassic Cephalopoda and Cretaceous and Jurassic Echinoidea, was 
1862-1869. 
1 Proc. Somerset Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc, Vol. XIII, pt. 2, pp. 119-244. 
'Q.J.G.S., Vol. XXIII, pp. 449-568. 
