Ordinary meeting: Friday, July 4th, 1884

419

ORDINARY MEETING.

FRIDAY, JULY 4TH, 1884.

HENRY HICKS, ESQ., M.D., F.G.S., President, in the Chair.

The list of donations to the library since the last meetingwas read, and the thanks of the Association were accorded tothe donors.

The following were elected members of the Association :­Miss Mary Forster and F. A. Harrison.

The following papers were read :-'On the North-west Highlands and their teachings/ by Pro­

fessor J. F. Blake, M.A., F.G.S.'On the Stratigraphy and Metamorphism of the Rocks of

the Durness-Eriboll district,' by Professor Charles Lapworth,LL.D., F.G.S., a letter to J. H. Teall, Esq., M.A., F.G.S., bywhom it was read on Professor Lapworth's behalf.

, On the Geology of South Devon, with special reference to theLong Excursion,' by W. A. E. Ussher, F.G.S.

THE NORTH-WEST HIGHLANDS AND THEIR TEAOHINGS.

By REV. J. F. BLAKE, M.A., F.G.S., Professor of Natural Science,University College, Nottingham.

Those who have watched by the advancing tide will have seenthat ever and anon a larger wave than usual comes rushing roundsome unrecovered spot and secures it for the sea j and so the tidecomes in. Such waves occur in science, and if, as in geology,there be several fields, one after another thus absorbs the attentionof the advancing army. So Palooontology has had its day, andPetrology is in its dawn. As once all hands were eager for thefossil, now all eyes are anxious for the slice. This has led toa deeper interest both in volcanic rocks and in those vast store­houses of petrological treasure-the Archsean schists and gneisses,and thus he who once found fossils where no one else could findthem, now finds Archsean system after system where no one elsecan follow him. In the study of the Archsean rocks of Britain,the foremost question to be asked has reference to the Highlandsof Scotland. Are these wild wastes and loftymountain-tops carved

32