3 74 
SECOND REPORT -1832. 
logical Society in 1819. This map, as compared with the earlier 
publication of Mr. Smith, will be found to present, in all the 
districts occupied by formations older than the lias, corrections 
of the most material description; and in the more recent for¬ 
mations, where both maps generally agree, that agreement is 
in itself important as a confirmation of the accuracy of each, as 
that of the Geological Society was in no instance a copy from 
its predecessor, but entirely the result of independent observa¬ 
tions collected during frequent, extensive, and laborious jour¬ 
neys. Those who have never seen the immense collection of 
materials in Mr. Greenough’s most valuable manuscript geologi¬ 
cal note-books, can have little idea of the immense labour which 
he bestowed upon this object: his library also contains a vast 
collection of materials, equally important, in illustration of Con¬ 
tinental geology; and it is greatly to be regretted that these still 
remain entirely unpublished. To no one individual does the 
progress of our science stand more deeply indebted than to the 
first President, and I may well add principal founder of the Geo¬ 
logical Society, which, without his unwearied zeal and unstinted 
devotion of his talents, time, and pecuniary resources, could 
never have struggled through the numerous difficulties which 
embarrassed the first years of its existence*. 
While geology on the Continent was advanced by the labours 
of Von Buch in Germany and Scandinavia, and by the able 
general systematic works of Daubuisson and the universal Hum¬ 
boldt, we may here pause to observe w hat had been accomplished 
by our own London Society in its earlier years before the close 
of its first series of Transactions in 1821. Already had its con¬ 
tributions completed to a high degree of perfection all the most 
important details of English geology; and besides this, the east¬ 
ern half of Ireland had been very exactly described in the Me¬ 
moirs of Dr. Berger and Mr. Weaver,—the latter especially well 
deserving the highest consideration, both from the copiousness 
and precision of its details, and the extent and beauty of its 
graphic illustrations j~. The primitive districts and the West- 
* Considering that this Report was originally delivered within the walls of 
the theatre of Oxford, I cannot refrain on this occasion from repeating the 
acknowledgement which I formerly made in the Introduction to my “ Out¬ 
lines,”—“that we owe the introduction of these pursuits into our University to 
lectures delivered between 1805 and 1810 by my much valued friend Dr. Kidd, 
whose more private exertions in encouraging the rising talents of others were 
as successful in effect as liberal in design.” 
f The same author has since, in 1831, communicated to the Geological So¬ 
ciety a similar Memoir of the south-western counties; so that the north-western 
portion of Ireland is all which remains undescribed at the present time. 
