PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL AND POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY 
AT THE SEVENTY-FOURTH MEETING, HELD IX THE 
TOWN HALL, PONTEFRACT, ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4tH, 1869. 
The Eight Hon. Lord Houghton, D.C.L., F.R.S., and 
F.R.S., Lit., Vice-President of the Society, in the Chair. 
Lord Houghton, in opening the proceedings, said : This is 
the seventy- fourth meeting of the Geological and Polytechnic 
Society of the West-Piding of Yorkshire. The Society was 
founded originally at a meeting of the great coalowners of 
this important district, covering as it does an area of some- 
thing like 500 square miles, for the object, at first, of inquir- 
ing into the science of mineralogy, and bringing to bear on 
that great department of British industry all the resources of 
science ; but as the meetings went on it was suggested that 
they should be extended to other subjects of a cognate 
character, embracing archaeology and history, though the 
Society remains in its foundation, mainly, geological, and it 
is to geological objects one would wish it to be chiefly 
applied. You know, and it is not for me to tell you, how 
interesting a field of geology is presented to us in this great 
county to which we have the honour to belong ; and receiv- 
ing, as we do, such a large amount of material profit from 
its mineral products, and perceiving, as we do, day by day, 
that all the beauty of nature is passing away under the 
dominion of smoke, we nevertheless feel that we must make 
