readily available means of subsistence, both to man and to animals that would serve him as food. In the earliest as well as in later times, the centre of the migrations of the human race may well have lain in the far East, and the course of their wanderings, as in after days, been even then "westwards, towards the setting sun." Most remarkable it is that implements, which in form, though not in material, are indistinguishable from those of our river-drifts, have been found in stratified beds of uncertain age in Southern Africa and in the so-called lateritic deposits of the south of India.

The first discovery of Palæolithic implements in Madras was made about ten years ago by Mr. R. Bruce Foote, of the Indian Geological Survey; but at that time the absence of organic remains in the beds containing the implements rendered it almost impossible to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, either as to their age or mode of deposition. In the Records of the Geological Survey of India for the year 1873, Mr. Medlicott, however, gives an account of a quartzite implement of precisely the same class as those found in Southern India, which was discovered in the ossiferous deposits of the Narbadá valley. These deposits, which, by the late Dr. Falconer, were regarded as Pliocene, Mr. Medlicott sees reason to place among those of Pleistocene age. Whichever view may eventually prove to be correct, we have in India, as in Europe, evidence of man having coexisted with animals now long since extinct; and the Elephas or Stegodon insignis, the Bos, and Hippopotamus namadicus seem there to take the place of the allied members of the European Quaternary fauna as his contemporaries. This Narbadá discovery remains, however, a solitary instance, but must surely lead to other and even more interesting results from the investigations of those engaged in the wide field of geological research in India.

From Borneo, where I have reason to hope there are, at the present moment, some cavern-investigations being carried on under the auspices of several Fellows of this Society, who have kindly aided me by their support, it is not, I think, unreasonable to expect that some light may be thrown on the antiquity of man in the far East. When we look back upon all the large array of facts which have been accumulated on this subject during the last sixteen years, we may find good ground for encouragement, and rest assured that in this as well as other departments of knowledge that prophecy of the wise man, which Bacon inscribed on the frontispiece of his great work, will be fulfilled-Multi pertransibunt, et augebitur scientia.

February 24, 1875.

JOHN EVANS, Esq., V.P.R.S., President, in the Chair.

Before proceeding to the business of the Meeting the President spoke as follows:—

I cannot proceed to the ordinary business of this evening without making some allusion to the melancholy event by which so deep a gloom has been cast over all of us since the Anniversary Meeting on Friday last. I little thought, in speaking of the services rendered to this Society fifty years ago by Sir Charles Lyell, services which in various ways he has ever since continued to render, that we should so soon have to lament his irreparable loss. By every one of us he was regarded as the leader of our science, by most of us as our trusted master, and by many of us as our faithful friend. He has lived to see the truth of those principles for which he so long and earnestly contended accepted by nearly all whose opinions he valued; and in future times, wherever the name of Lyell is known, it will be as that of the greatest, most philosophical, and most enlightened of British, if not indeed of European geologists.

Carl Alfred Bock, Esq., Great Grimsby; Christopher N. Dresser, Esq., C.E., 30 Park Row, Leeds; A. G. Renshaw, Esq., of Doctors' Commons and 2 Suffolk Lane, Cannon Street, E.C.; and W. H. Herbert, Esq., Havenfield Lodge, Great Missenden, Bucks, were elected Fellows of the Society.

The List of Donations to the Library was read.

The following communications were read:—

1. "On the Murchisonite Beds of the Estuary of the Ex, and an attempt to classify the Beds of the Trias thereby." By G. Warcing Ormerod, Esq., M.A., F.G.S.

2. "On some newly exposed Sections of the 'Woolwich and Reading Beds' near Reading, Berks." By Prof. T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S., and C. Cooper King, Esq., R.M. Art., F.G.S.

3. "On the Origin of Slickensides, with Remarks on Specimens from the Cambrian, Silurian, Carboniferous, and Triassic Formations." By D. Mackintosh, Esq., F.G.S.

Specimens illustrative of their respective papers were exhibited by Messrs. Ormerod, T. Rupert Jones, C. Cooper King, and D. Mackintosh.

March 10, 1875.

JOHN EVANS, Esq., V.P.R.S., President, in the Chair.

Rooke Pennington, Esq., LL.B., Clarendon Terrace, Haulgh, Bolton, Lancashire, and Hope View, Castleton, near Sheffield;

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Jonathan Harrison, Esq., Engineer to the Whitwick Colliery Company, Coalville, Leicestershire; the Rev. Henry Edward Maddock, M.A., 15 High Gardens, Eastbourne; Charles Twite, Esq., 219 Calle 25 de Mayo, Monte Video; and Philip Yorke, Esq., of Erddig, Wrexham, were elected Fellows; and Dr. F. V. Hayden, of Washington, U. S., and M. Jules Marcou, of Cambridge, Mass., U.S., Foreign Correspondents of the Society.

The List of Donations to the Library was read.

The following communication was read:→→

"The Rocks of the Mining Districts of Cornwall, and their Relation to Metalliferous Deposits." By John Arthur Phillips, Esq., M.I.C.E., F.G.S.

Specimens illustrative of his paper were exhibited by Mr. J. Arthur Phillips, F G.S,

March 24, 1875.

JOHN EVANS, Esq., V.P.R.S., President, in the Chair. George Berringer Hall, Esq., 134 London Wall, E.C.; John Foulerton, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S. Edinb., F.R.S.E., Thatched-House Club, and 44 Pembridge Villas, Bayswater; Joseph Denby Sainter, Esq., Macclesfield; John Stubbins, Esq., Old Lane, Halifax; and George Henry Parke, Esq., Barrow-in-Furness, were elected Fellows of the Society.

The List of Donations to the Library was read.

The PRESIDENT announced that the late Sir Charles Lyell had bequeathed to the Society the sum of £2000 for the purposes stated in the following extract from his Will:

"I give to the Geological Society of London the Die executed by Mr. Leonard Wyon of a Medal to be cast in Bronze and to be given annually and called the Lyell Medal, and to be regarded as a mark of honorary distinction and as an expression on the part of the Governing Body of the Society that the Medallist (who may be of any Country or either sex) has deserved well of the Science. I further give to the said Society the sum of Two thousand pounds (free of legacy duty) to be paid to the President and Treasurer for the time being, whose receipt shall be a good discharge to my Executors; and I direct the said sum to be invested in the name of the said Society, or of the Trustees thereof, in such securities as the Council shall from time to time think proper, and that the annual interest arising therefrom shall be appropriated and applied in the following manner: not less than one third of the annual interest to accompany the Medal, the remaining interest to be given in one or more portions at the discretion of the Council, for the encouragement of Geology or of any of the allied Sciences by which they shall consider Geology to have been most materially advanced, either for

travelling expenses or for a memoir or paper published or in progress, and without reference to the sex or nationality of the author or the language in which any such memoir or paper may be written, And I declare that the Council of the said Society shall be the sole Judges of the Merits of the memoirs or papers for which they may vote the Medal and Fund from time to time. And I direct that the legacy herein before given to the said Society shall be paid out of such part of my personal estate as may be legally applicable to the payment of such bequests."

Prof. PRESTWICH said that when he first joined the Geological Society, Sir Charles Lyell, or Mr. Lyell, as he was then, was one of its junior leaders. When his first great work appeared, the views advocated in it were regarded with little favour; but he lived to see them generally received. His words justly carried weight over the whole scientific world; and the charm of his writings had greatly increased the number of students of geology, and consequently promoted the interests of the Geological Society. For his own part, Prof. Prestwich added that, although he might differ from Sir Charles Lyell in some of the conclusions at which he had arrived, all must agree that the manner of proceeding from the known to the unknown adopted by him was the only true method. In conclusion, Prof. Prestwich proposed the following resolution :-"That this Meeting, having heard the announcement of the bequest made to the Geological Society by the late Sir Charles Lyell, desire to record their deep sense of the loss the Society has sustained by his death, and their grateful appreciation of the liberal bequest for the advancement of geological knowledge placed at their disposal by their late distinguished Fellow."

Mr. WARINGTON W. SMYTH expressed the pleasure he felt in seconding the motion made by Prof. Prestwich, and said that it was with a mingled feeling of sadness and satisfaction that he had heard the announcement just made from the Chair. As a boy he had heard a lecture on geology given by Sir Charles in a room in Hart Street, Bloomsbury; and it was pleasant to recollect how interesting he made the subject. His audience might have consisted of twenty persons. Mr. Smyth well remembered "young Lyell," as he used to be called by Admiral Smyth, coming to visit him at his school at Bedford, and challenging the boys to play at football, when he proved himself to be one of the most active among them. He had a vivid recollection of a holiday passed in boating on the Ouse, when Sir Charles Lyell had provided himself with a plummet and string, and set himself to measure the river. He tested its depth, velocity, sediments, &c., and showed the party how, from such data, the volume of water that flowed down the river, and the quantity of sediment that it carried to the sea, might be calculated. Sir Charles was a great collector of facts with a purpose in view. Mr. Smyth concluded by expressing his satisfaction at finding that this Society was uppermost in the mind of his old friend at the close as during the whole course of his well-spent life.

The following communications were read:

1. "On the Occurrence of Phosphates in the Cambrian Rocks." By Henry Hicks, Esq., F.G.S.

2. "Note on the Structure of the Phosphatic Nodules from the Top of the Bala Limestone in North Wales." By M. Hawkins Johnson, Esq., F.G.S.

3. "On the Maxillary Bone of a new Dinosaur, Priodontognathus Phillipsii, contained in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge." By Harry Govier Seeley, Esq., F.L.S., F.G.S., Professor of Physical Geography in Bedford College, London.

4. "Description of a new Species of the genus Hemipatagus, Desor, from the Tertiary Rocks of Victoria, Australia; with Notes. on some previously described Species from South Australia. Etheridge, Jun., Esq., F.G.S.

The following specimens were exhibited :

By R.

Specimens from the Cambrian Rocks of South Wales; exhibited by H. Hicks, Esq., F.G.S., in illustration of his paper.

Australian Echinoderms; exhibited by R. Etheridge, Jun., Esq., F.G.S., in illustration of his paper.

A semiphosphatized bone from a recent deposit of Chalk rubble filling a fault in the cliff near Folkestone; exhibited by C. J. A. Meyer, Esq., F.G.S.

Agates from South America, Oberstein, Perthshire, and Gloucestershire; exhibited by Prof. J. Tennant, F.G.S.

Specimen of Priodontognathus Phillipsii; exhibited by Prof. T. M'Kenny Hughes, in illustration of Mr. Seeley's paper.

April 14, 1875.

JOHN EVANS, Esq., V.P.R.S., President, in the Chair.

Louis Compton Miall, Esq., Curator of the Museum of the Leeds Philosophical Society; John Brigg, Esq., J.P., Broomfield, Keighley; and Henry Davey, Esq., Civil and Mining Engineer, Hyde Lodge, St. John's Hill, Leeds, were elected Fellows; and Dr. Theodore Kjerulf, of Christiania, a Foreign Member of the Society.

The List of Donations to the Library was read.

The following communications were read:

1. "Descriptions of New Corals from the Carboniferous Limestone of Scotland." By James Thomson, Esq., F.G.S.

2. "On the probable Existence of a considerable Fault in the Lias near Rugby, and of a new Outlier of the Oolite." By J. M. Wilson, Esq., M.A., F.G.S.