John Phillips was born on the Christmas Day of 1800 (N. S.), at Marden, in Wiltshire. At this period the science of Geology, to which he has devoted himself so ardently, was itself struggling into active life. Men had talked of “Theories of the Earth,” and with much fancy had built it up of concentric rings, but there were scarcely any actual observers of those strata of which they discoursed so poetically.

The fossil wood which covers the desert to the east of Cairo has long filled the passing traveller on this great Eastern high road with surprise.

During a brief visit in Devonshire, the main outlines of the features of the country appeared due to ice sculpture; nevertheless, the vast amount of denudation observable among the hills, evidently the result of meteoric abrasion, caused me to be cautious in coming to a conclusion too quickly, although Mr. G. W. Ormerod, F.G.S. (whose minute knowledge of the district is well known, and with whom I had the pleasure of examining a part of Devon), pointed out that in various places he had found glacier-formed drift. Having subsequently visited both Devon and Cornwall, although time did not permit of a minute search for ice-striæ, yet seemingly the first-formed impressions were correct, and, apparently, ice was the principal agent employed to carve out the main features of this portion of England.

Having listened with much pleasure to several able lectures on Geology and Palæontology which have already been delivered in this Hall, I believe I am correct in affirming, that the general tendency of these discourses has been altogether in one direction; the object being, to impress forcibly upon your minds the opinion that the various changes which have taken place in the earth's history, inhabitants, and surface configuration, have been mainly effected by what may be termed external agencies, i.e., by forces acting from without, slow but sure in their operations, yet but comparatively so feeble in their energy as to demand a practically unlimited amount of time being placed at their disposal to enable them to accomplish those great revolutions which we see and know to have taken place in the geological history of our globe.

The dispersion of debris from the rocks of the Lake district towards the midland counties, is an old and well established fact. Between 1820 and 1850, we find it occupying the attention of such authors as Sedgwick, Phillips, Murchison, Agassiz. Buckland, Binney, Hopkins, and Mantell; and the present day observer may well be cautious in attempting to improve upon their initiatory labours. Special attention appears to have been directed to eastern and south-eastern lines of transport. The Shap granite was followed to every outpost; and the Cumberland erratics in the South Lancashire and Cheshire plains-and remoter valleys and uplands—received recognition in exhaustive memoirs.