384 
SECOND REPORT- 1832 . 
Those eminent French geologists to whom the important task 
of preparing a grand geological map of their own country is in¬ 
trusted by its Government,—Broehant, Elie de Beaumont, and 
Dufrenoy,—also began their labours by carefully examining all 
the most important points of English geology, as affording an 
ascertained basis for comparative observations on the general 
structure of Europe; the published results of their journey are 
indeed rather statistical (relating to the position, extraction, and 
preparation of our mineral ores,) than strictly geological; but 
the spirit of these comparative examinations will fully appear 
in the several valuable Memoirs they have published from time 
to time on the Central and South-eastern districts of France, the 
countries to which the survey has been first directed*. Still 
more recently two of the first German geologists, Messrs. Oeyn- 
hausen and Becken, have visited our island, and contributed 
several important Memoirs on the Granitic Veins of Cornwall, 
on several of the Scotch Islands, &c. 
This general intercourse of observers of different nations 
is not only, from the liberal spirit which has ever on all sides 
pervaded it, most gratifying in itself, but it is also especially 
important to the advancement of a science in which all the great 
general views require the most widely extended comparative 
observations for their establishment and development. 
Before I proceed to submit to your attention an outline (ne¬ 
cessarily brief and slight,) of the rapid progress which geology 
has recently made in developing the structure of foreign coun¬ 
tries, it may be convenient here to premise the general geogra¬ 
phical order which it is my intention to adopt in adverting to 
the investigations thus successfully pursued. I shall begiif 
by those constituting or bordering the great European basin, 
which I shall take in the following order:—France, the Alps, 
Germany, the Baltic coasts and Scandinavia, ending with Rus¬ 
sia. Next I shall proceed to the countries connected with the 
Mediterranean basin,—the Spanish Peninsula, Italy, Turkey, 
and the African coasts. The other quarters of the globe will 
assistance of my distinguished friend Prof. Sedgwick, who has so largely con¬ 
tributed to the elucidation of our older rocks, to complete the survey of England 
in a second volume of the “ Outlines.” We should then possess a complete geolo¬ 
gical history of the British Islands, reduced within the manageable compass of 
four portable volumes. 
* I would especially refer to M. Elie de Beaumont’s Memoirs “ On the For¬ 
mations in the Vosges intermediate between the Coal and Lias,” or what I 
would call the poecilitic group, ( Annales des Mines , 1827) ; and “ On the Uni¬ 
formity of the Jurassic Zone environing the Basins of London and Paris,” ( An- 
nahs des Sciences Nat. 1829); also to those of Dufrenoy “ On the Upper Beds 
of the Lias in South-west France,” {Annales des Mines , 1827) ; “ On the Central 
Platform of France,” (Ibid. 1828), and “ On the Chalk of the South of France,” 
(Bulletin de la Soc. Geol. 1830). 
