116 
SECTIONS TO CONNECT THE LANCASHIRE 
pared sheets on which the sections could be copied and uniform 
results obtained. The scale was 40 feet to one inch both horizontal 
and vertical. Already the members of this Society had made some 
progress in the direction indicated to the committee of the association, 
and it would appear that an object so easy of attainment, and of such 
importance and utility, would scarcely require the assistance or 
pressure of the British Association to secure its being effectually 
carried out. Such, however, was not the case. Great energy was 
expended in the formation of new railways, and on mauy lines no 
measures had been taken to preserve a regular and systematic record 
of the geological sections exposed during their formation, and in 
other cases where the sections had been carefully measured and pre- 
served, they were on such a varied series of scales that their utility 
was greatly reduced. It was difficult to convince those not intimately 
acquainted with the facts and truths of geological science of the 
value of such sections and records ; and of the loss and inconvenience 
resulting from the want of the particular information they afforded. 
In the "West Riding where so much of the prosperity of its inhabitants 
depends on the products of mining, the sections exposed by railway 
cuttings, together with the sections exposed in sinking shafts and 
pits or borings, were recognised of the utmost value in determining 
the sequence and lie of the beds ; but even where the advantages 
were so apparent many sections were allowed to become obscured and 
lost before any attempt was made to record them ; how much greater 
then must have been the neglect in more remote districts where there 
was no mining operations carried on. The importance of the know- 
ledge from an agricultural point of view is equally great ; the nature 
and depth of the soil, the substratum of rock or clay, and the general 
structure of the district is valuable in proportion as it is known and 
appreciated, and the relation which was then discovered existing 
between chemistry and agTiculture rendered a knowledge of the geo- 
logical structure of a country of still greater importance. Railway 
sections in a fiat country afford evidence, which can with difficulty 
be otherwise obtained of the relation and spread of derivative strata, 
such as glacial clays or drift, to the older rocks which they overlie, 
and the consequent change in the character of the superimposed soils. 
