presented a weird and striking spectacle, its enormous proportions being vividly displayed. A vote of thanks to Mr Torrance was accorded on the motion of Mr C. W. Peach, A.L.S. The excursion party afterwards dined at Bonnington by the hospitality of Mr Melvin. After dinner, Mr Ralph Richardson proposed "Success to the Geological Society of Glasgow," to which Mr Murdoch, Secretary of the Glasgow Society, replied. Mr John Young, Glasgow, gave a brief account of the Burdiehouse limestone. He then proposed "Success to the Edinburgh Geological Society, and health and prosperity to Mr Melvin." Mr Ferguson of Kinmundy, Senior Vice-President G.S.E., replied for the Society, and Mr Melvin returned thanks and welcomed his guests. The excursionists then walked to Ratho Station, and after inspecting the beautifully glaciated rocks on the north side of the station (Queensferry platform), they left for their respective cities by evening trains.

8th June 1878.

An excursion took place to-day to the Moorfoot Hills, to inspect the new reservoirs and works of the Edinburgh Water Trust. Mr Coyne, engineer to the Trust, acted as leader, and the party drove in open carriages from St Andrew Square, via Liberton and Penicuik, to Portmore Loch. Here, on the roadway, near the north end of the loch, Mr James Wilson, one of the party, discovered what he considered to be the Moffat shales cropping out, being the most northern locality where they have yet been observed. The excursionists then proceeded, via Toxside, to Gladhouse, where Mr Coyne pointed out 400 acres destined to be submerged in the formation of a great reservoir. After refreshments in the Clerk of Works' office, at Gladhouse, Mr George Lyon, the oldest member of the Society (having been elected in 1842), proposed Mr Coyne's health. Mr Coyne returned thanks. After inspecting the very interesting water-works at the outlet of this reservoir, the party drove back to town, via Rosebery, Carrington, and Dalkeith, passing through some of the most charming scenery of Midlothian.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING AND PRESIDENT'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

The Forty-fifth Annual General Meeting of the Society was held on 21st November 1878, when the following Inaugural Address was delivered by the President, DAVID MILNE-HOME, Esq. of Milnegraden, LL.D.:

On this the forty-fifth anniversary of the Society, and our first night's meeting for winter work, I begin a short address by expressing the pleasure I have in again finding myself among you, and hoping that we shall have many interesting subjects brought. before us in the course of the present session. We have now a membership exceeding 230 persons, all, of course, having a taste for geology, most having a good general knowledge of the science, and many devoted to some special branch, on which they are doing useful work. But before saying more, allow me to allude to the loss the Society has sustained by the death of one of our most distinguished Fellows in the honorary class, and a very dear personal friend of mine, Sir Richard Griffith.

Sir Richard Griffith was one of the most skilful geologists of the time in which he lived, as is evidenced by his having been the first to construct a geological map of Ireland--a great work which he executed from his own personal observations exclusively. This map, originally published about the year 1830, went through four editions during the next fifteen years, each edition embodying the result of further discoveries by the author. To the value of this map, and to Sir Richard's knowledge of the Irish formations, testimony of a remarkable character has from time to time, and also quite recently, been given by the officers of the Irish Geological Survey. As merely one proof of this, let me mention that there is in the south-west of Ireland a large mass of slaty purple-coloured rocks which Sir Richard had in his map coloured as Upper Silurian. The officers of the survey long dissented from this view, considering that the rocks belonged to an anomalous formation lying between the Silurian and the Old Red Sandstone. Until only two months ago the Government officers persisted in their opinion, though they had held many friendly discussions on the subject with Sir Richard, who, however, adhered to his opinion. Professor Hull, the present director of the Irish survey, being anxious to have the matter settled, went with some of his staff during last autumn again to examine these rocks. The result was that he became satisfied of the correctness of Griffith's view. Even before leaving the district, Professor Hull addressed a letter to Sir Richard announcing

this result. But, unfortunately, the letter was too late to afford to the veteran geologist the pleasure intended for him. The letter did not reach him till a few days before his death, by which time he had ceased to care for, or even understand, such matters.

Professor Hull has, in an article sent to Nature" since Sir Richard's death, given an account of his visit to clear up the geological question, in which he pays a handsome tribute to Sir Richard.

Another proof of Sir Richard's knowledge and sound judgment in geological matters may be given. He informed me that, having some years ago gone to Bohemia to visit a relative, he was struck with the proofs which the rocks near his relative's residence afforded of there being valuable coal-seams at no great depth, though unworked and apparently unknown. He thereupon purchased a small tract of land for his son as a speculation, which he was sure would contain valuable coal-seams. Having completed the purchase, he employed persons to sink a pit. The people employed suggested that he should first ascertain by boring if there were any coal there, and at what depth. On his refusing to do so they thought him crazed or exceedingly foolish in at once incurring the expense of a working pit. Sir Richard told me the depth of the pit which was sunk. I forget the number of fathoms, but a thick and rich coal-seam was reached, as he expected, and at a depth only ten fathoms different from his own previous calculations; and he told me that a good return for the capital expended was obtained from the workings.

Sir Richard's first lessons in geology were obtained in Edinburgh, where he resided in the years 1807-8, and enjoyed (as he himself used to tell me) the personal friendship of Sir James Hall, Playfair, Horner, Lord Webb Seymour, Allan, and Jameson. At their suggestion he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and used to listen to the interesting geological discussions which then took place at its meetings among these founders of the science. Having completed his educational studies in Scotland, he returned to Ireland, and obtained employment as an engineer.

Subsequently he undertook the even more difficult duty of making a valuation of all the lands, houses, and other heritable property in every town and parish of Ireland, in order to afford a basis of a more equitable system of taxation, and define the limits of magisterial jurisdiction.

He was also made First Commissioner of Public Works and Buildings in Ireland.

During the great potato famine he was placed by the Government at the head of the arrangements for distributing food to the thousands who in all parts of Ireland were in a state of

starvation-a service which for more than a year, as he often told me, required constant official and most harassing work of sixteen hours daily.

During the last fifteen years of his life Sir Richard had retired from all his public duties, and spent most of his time at Hendersyde, the residence of his son, Mr Waldie Griffith, near Kelso.

I had then the good fortune to become well acquainted with him, and almost every summer had opportunities of making excursions with him to visit objects and places of geological interest.

He was particularly desirous of seeing examples of boulderclay, which he told me did not exist abundantly in Ireland. He also when at Hendersyde became interested in the study of the remarkable gravel ridges near Kelso, called the Kames, and went with me to study several others, which are on a larger scale, in the higher parts of Berwickshire.

It was in consequence of having thus become acquainted with the boulder-clay and gravel deposits in Scotland that he drew out for the British Association, in 1871, a report "On the Boulder Drift and Esker Hills of Ireland, and on the Position of Erratic Blocks in Ireland." This report he illustrated by means of a large water-coloured drawing, beautifully executed, of one of the Irish eskers, and which he afterwards presented to a daughter of mine, who, besides being herself somewhat of an artist in that line, was fond of geology. This drawing I now exhibit, as also a photograph of my dear old friend.

The geological knowledge which Sir Richard had acquired in early life enabled him to undertake works and complete them in a manner which elicited general approval. One of the first works on which he was employed by Government was to construct roads through a mountainous region in Ireland, previously inaccessible, and the resort chiefly of robbers, who made it their stronghold, and there almost defied the laws. These roads, about 250 miles in length, displayed the highest engineering skill, and opened out scenery which was greatly admired.

After the ordnance surveyors had supplied an accurate topographical map of Ireland on a scale of 5 inches to the mile, Sir Richard was enabled to represent on it more correctly than formerly the geological features of the country, and in the year 1854 he presented a copy of his geological map of Ireland, greatly enlarged and improved, to the Geological Society of London. That Society, in recognition of his important geological researches, awarded to Sir Richard the Wollaston Palladium Medal; and in the year 1858 Her Majesty conferred upon him a baronetcy, to testify her appreciation of his services in numerous public departments.

The first palæontological collection formed in Ireland was

made by Sir Richard. It consisted chiefly of the fossils of the Carboniferous rocks. In the year 1844 he employed Mr M'Coy to publish a descriptive catalogue of these fossils. This splendid work, in quarto size, and containing plates of no less than 450 species not previously described, was published entirely at Sir Richard's expense.

Sir Richard often spoke to me of the benefits he derived in his youth from a residence of nearly two years in Edinburgh, about the year 1807-8. Having shown a taste for rocks and minerals, he was sent by his father to that town, where he believed that more instruction could at that time be obtained on the subject of geology and mineralogy than anywhere else. He often spoke to me of the interest with which he used to listen to the geological discussions which went on in those days in the Royal Society of Edinburgh between the Huttonians and Wernerians. In later years, when staying at Hendersyde, he occasionally visited Edinburgh, and he once or twice came with me to meetings of the Royal Society, as well as of our own (Geological) Society.

Since our last winter's session, the members of our Society have not been idle. Excursions were arranged to visit different localities, these being selected so as to illustrate questions of geological interest.

The first locality visited was Alnwick Hill, near Liberton, where deep and extensive cuttings had been made through boulder-clay, and where boulders of various kinds of rock could be examined, all more or less rounded, and some with wellmarked stria upon them.

The second locality visited was in the vicinity of East Calder at the Camps Limestone Quarries, to see sections of the freshwater Burdiehouse Limestone, and also inspect the igneous rocks near Ratho.

A third excursion was made to the New Edinburgh Waterworks in the Moorfoot Hills to examine the Silurian Strata, towards the elucidation of which so much has been done by one of our Fellows, Mr Charles Lapworth, in his exhaustive paper on the rocks of the Moffat district. Those who went upon this excursion, had the good fortune to be accompanied by Mr James Wilson, one of our Fellows, who had assisted Mr Lapworth in his survey, and who on this occasion of the visit to the Moorfoot Hills was so fortunate as to discover, cropping out near Portmore Loch, some of the characteristic anthracitic or pyriferous shales which abound near Moffat. These old rocks of the south of Scotland have successively engaged the researches of Sedgwick, Harkness, and Murchison. Notwithstanding the discoveries of these eminent geologists, there is still a large field in that quarter for farther investigation. Mr Lapworth's paper, though