ATKINSON: HISTORY AND OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 55 
York, Lincoln, Ely, and Carlisle, Selby has neither apse nor 
lord-chapels spreading beyond the main building. The ends 
of the choir and its aisles form the grand and simple east 
end of a type exclusively English. Within, the choir may 
be thought to suffer somewhat from the common English 
fault of lowness. A somewhat larger triforum range would 
have made the difference ; and the vault of wood is clearly 
the right thing if the walls and pillars were found unable to 
support a vault of stone. A wooden vault is of course a 
makeshift, but it is an allowable and necessary makeshift. 
The wooden vault of Selby is thoroughly good of its own 
kind, and it is a special relief to one who comes to it 
from the paltry roofs of its metropolitan neighbour at 
York. 
This meeting is a very important one in the history of 
our Society, for it is the first meeting we have had since the 
name was changed from the West Riding Geological and 
Polytechnic Society to its present title. When it is con- 
sidered what a large and important county Yorkshire is, 
how that it embraces within its boundaries so large a pro- 
portion of the Fossiliferous strata almost continuously from 
the Silurian rocks to the Chalk, and admits small tracks of 
shelly beds allied to the Crag, and broad spaces of glacial 
drift, besides marine and freshwater deposits rich in remains 
of Pleistocene age, I trust you will consider the determina- 
tion a wise one. If, again, you regard its natural beauties, 
such as the moorland wastes, or its steep hills covered with 
foliage, or its sea-girt cliffs, or the rich alluvial soil seen in 
this neighbourhood, or the value of its mines and minerals ; 
or again, the illustrious names it has contributed to the roll 
of fame and honour, such as our great Geologist, Father 
Smith, his illustrious nephew John Phillips, Sedgwick, the 
two Williamsons, Buckland, Scoresby, Hugh Strickland, 
West, Archdeacon Paley, Dean Howson, Sir Frederick 
