480 
Proceedings of the Pioyal Society 
Besides making an appeal for the conservation of boulders, the 
same Swiss Geological Commission suggested the propriety of 
marking their exact position on the Government maps. 
They farther expressed a hope that these measures might reach 
even beyond the frontiers of Switzerland, and they referred to an 
offer made by a French geologist to draw up an account of the 
Erratics of Souabe , with the view of obtaining co-operation from 
that quarter. 
A committee was appointed to carry out these views, supply the 
necessary schedules and maps, and conduct the correspondence. 
I shall next explain what resulted from the appeal. The circular 
containing it was issued in the autumn of 1867, and I now quote 
from a report presented to the Helvetic Society of Natural Sciences 
at a meeting in August 1869, drawn up by Messrs Favre and Soret. 
They state that, very soon after the commencement of the inves¬ 
tigation, it was found desirable not to limit it to boulders, but to 
include a description of enormous heaps of gravel, existing in many 
districts, having the appearance of ancient moraines, and in that 
view likely to throw light on the mode in which the boulders were 
transported. Accordingly, instructions w r ere given to indicate on 
the maps the position of these gravel accumulations as well as of 
boulders. 
Messrs Favre and Soret then narrate what had been done during 
the previous year in the different cantons, and from their report 
I give the following extracts :— 
!n the first place, they acknowledge the liberality of Colonel 
Siegfried, the Director of the Federal Topographical Department, 
in supplying maps to assist in recording the observations. 
They farther acknowledge the assistance which Colonel Siegfried 
had given to the investigation, by issuing instructions to the 
engineers surveying the slopes of the Jura, to indicate on the maps, 
and to describe in their reports, any remarkable erratic blocks they 
met with. 
Reference is next made to the proceedings of the societies and 
clubs in the different cantons. In some of the larger cantons, as 
Lucerne and Vaud, the country had been divided into, five and six 
compartments, and a small sub-committee of members had been 
appointed to explore each. In one of these cantons, the municipal 
