JOHN PHILLIPS, F.R.S. 
129 
against all this opposition, and all I can claim credit for is that I was 
a hearty supporter of the scheme — Coute que coute. This first gather- 
ing was in short much like what takes place at small continental 
meetings. We had no regular sections, but worked on harmoniously 
with our small affairs in cumulo. The excellent archbishop was of great 
social use, and gave a dignity to the proceedings ; whilst Lord 
Morpeth, then the young member for Yorkshire, incited us by 
speeches as to our future. It was then and there resolved that we 
were ever to be Provincials. Old Dalton insisted on this, saying that 
we should lose all the object of diffusing knowledge if we ever met 
in the metropolis. With all our efforts, however, we might not have 
succeeded had not my dear friend, Dr. Daubeny, boldly suggested 
(and he had no authority whatever) that we should hold our second 
meeting in the University of Oxford. It was that second meeting 
which consolidated us, and enabled us to take up a proper position. 
Then it was that seeing the thing was going to succeed, the men of 
science of the metropolis and those of the Universities joined us." 
At the close of the meeting Murchison again accompanied Mr. 
Smith to Scarbro', and renewed his acquaintance with the rocks on 
the Yorkshire coast. It does not require a stretch of the imagination 
to picture Murchison among these Yorkshire cliffs with the kindly old 
man as his guide, who, though he had done more for geology than 
any man then living, was spending the remainder of his days in 
humble quiet at Scarbro', and it was during these wanderings that 
Murchison conceived the idea of obtaining for Mr. Smith the appoint- 
ment of geological colourer of the ordnance maps, with a salary of 
£100 per annum. 
In 1831, Professor Phillips was also investigating the neigh- 
bourhood of Halifax, and was enabled through Mr. C. Rawson to 
add materially to his knowledge of the lower coal system, and " to 
demonstrate the occurrence of a marine calcareous bed with fossils of 
the Mountain Limestone amongst the Coal Series." In 1832, he 
surveyed the vicinity of Harrogate, and made abundant observations 
in the dales and amongst the hills to the northwards. His leisure 
in 1833 was similarly employed, and every visible bed of rock or 
shale in the great Yorkshire mountains was measured and recorded. 
