378 
Correspondence — Prof. G. S. Boulger. 
fauna showing the change to deeper- water conditions. Near Folke- 
stone the change to the deeper water of the Grey-chalk sea is very 
plain, and is seen to have been a gradual one. The discovery of 
these Red Clays is of exceeding interest, but it is inisleading to speak 
of them as analogous to the Gault. J. S. Gardner. 
Park House, St. John’s Wood Park, N.W. 
May 17 th, 1877. 
DR. WILLIAM SMITH’S GEOLOGICAL MAPS. 
Sir, — At a recent sale the copper-plates of William Smith’s original 
folio atlas of geologically coloured maps of England, sixteen in 
number, including the index, published in 1821, came into the 
possession of Mr. Edward Stanford, of Charing Cross, who is willing 
to seil them at, as he writes to me, a trifling cost (for sixteen large 
coppers), if purchased for the Geological Society. It would not pay 
now-a-days to reprint maps only of historical interest ; but I venture 
to think that the maps of the father of English Geology are worthy 
of being preserved from the melting-pot, the doom of superannuated 
copper-plates, and entrusted to the safe keeping of some chartered 
society. I write this, therefore, to obtain the opinion of geologists 
on the matter, and shall be gl ad to receive the names of gentlemen 
who will subscribe for their purchase, as I propose, for presentation 
to the Geological Society, which already possesses the original 
manuscript maps. G. S. Boulger, F.L.S., F.G.S. 
Scientific Club, 7, Savile Row, 
July 12, 1877. 
PREMATURE CONCLUSIONS. 
Sir, — The practice of the Geological Society, of publishing 
“ abstracts ” of papers read at the meetings, before the papers 
themselves are published, is sometimes of great Service both to the 
authors and to the public ; but it lias this serious drawback, that the 
public generally found their conclusions regarding the value of the 
paper — and the correctness of the author’s views — not on the paper, 
but on the “ äbstract,” which necessarily contains but an imperfect 
statement of the data upon which the author has rested his argu- 
ments ; and the probabilities are, that when the paper itself appears 
in extenso some months afterwards, the men who have based their 
conclusions upon the Statements of the “abstract” will not cai'e to 
make themselves acquainted with the details and arguments of the 
paper. 
This drawback has come with great force to my mind (as no 
doubt it has done in the case of others) from the manner in which 
the paper I had the opportunity of bringing before the Society has 
been received and criticized in several quarters. One geologist, for 
whose opinion I entertain a high respect, wrote at once to intimate 
that he could not accept my conclusions ; and when I naturally 
replied that he had not had an opportunity of reading the details 
upon which they had been founded, he replied that, “ having seen 
the ‘abstract,’ he knew already quite enough to satisfy his own mind 
on the subject and I greatly fear my friend, who on a foruier 
