As Time progresses, Geology, although comparatively a modern Science, yet looks back upon its early and honoured leaders, much in the same way as Art regards its “Old Masters.” Those pioneers have all left us, and, alas! few even of the distinguished men who belong, as it were, to a second generation now remain. Of these, who in their turn have become veterans in the science, we have recently to deplore the loss of Mr. Godwin-Austen.

In 1822, just sixty-three years ago, Mrs. Mantell found the first tooth of a new and remarkable reptile (afterwards known as Iguanodon), imbedded in a mass of coarse conglomerate, which had been brought as ‘road–metal’ from one of the quarries in the Wealden formation of Tilgate Forest.

The received theory of Slaty Cleavage has generally been held to afford a complete explanation of the observed phenomena. The proximate cause of the structure was shown by Dr. Sorby to be a superinduced arrangement of the flat and long-shaped fragments constituting the rock, in virtue of which they tend to lie in, or nearly in, the planes of cleavage; this arrangement being assisted, as Mr. D. Sharpe advocated, by a flattening of those particles themselves. These changes were ascribed to great lateral compression of the rock in the direction perpendicular to the cleavage-planes, together with some expansion along those planes in the line of their dip; and a great mass of evidence was brought forward to support this theory.

During the year 1883 I gave some account, in the pages of this Magazine, of the peculiarities of the water drawn from the Bagshot strata of the London Basin. The most important conclusion drawn in that paper from the evidence adduced was the great difference in the quality of the water according as it is obtained either (a) from the bright ferruginous sands of the Upper Bagshots, or (b) from the Middle or Lower Bagshot strata, which are all contaminated (more or less) by vegetable matter in various stages of decomposition. So far as the evidence in my possession a year ago seemed to carry me, I felt warranted in making the following generalization: “The whole of the well-water of the district which common human experience pronounces wholesome is obtained from the Upper ferruginous sands.” This has been confirmed by additional facts more recently learnt.

The interesting and important results of the dredgings by the U. S. Steamer Albatross2 between July and September 1884, should not be allowed to pass without notice by geologists.