peace of 1815 had opened the Continent to British geologists, Mr. Conybeare had formed, from the imperfect data then within his reach, a sound opinion as to the identity of the Jura limestone with the oolitic formations of England, an anticipation which he had afterwards the gratification, in conjunction with Dr. Buckland and Mr. Greenough, of verifying. The versatility of the genius of Dean Conybeare led him to examine and describe the lesser points connected with organic remains, as well as the greater; a circumstance in which he strongly resembled his friend and fellow-laborer, Dr. Buckland. For an exemplification of this peculiarity of his mind, I shall refer to his paper published in the year 1844, in the second volume of the Transactions of the Society, and therefore one of his early contributions to palæontological science. It was entitled, "On the Origin of a remarkable Class of Organic Impressions occurring in nodules of flint." Mr. Parkinson had described them as "small round compressed bodies, not exceeding the eighth of an inch in their longest diameters, and horizontally disposed, connected by processes nearly of the fineness of a hair, which pass from different parts of each of these bodies, and are attached to the surrounding ones; the whole of these bodies being thus held in connexion." Mr. Parkinson considered that these bodies were the works of polyps, and he therefore classed them with corals of some unknown genera; and Dr. Buckland, who had directed his attention to them simultaneously with Mr. Conybeare, considered that the moulds in which the siliceous casts had been formed were the work of parasitic insects, the thin hair-like appendages having been the passages of entry first made by the insects, and the larger flattened bodies the cavities afterwards excavated, the object of the excavation having of course been to obtain nourishment from the body thus eaten into, whether a shell or any other. This observation of Dr. Buckland was communicated to Mr. Conybeare, but not until he had completed his own researches, and arrived at the same virtual conclusion,namely, that "these cellules were the works of animalcules preying on shells and on the vermes inhabiting them." In arriv ing at this conclusion, Mr. Conybeare was guided by the examination of various fragments of shells, still preserved in contact with the siliceous matter which had subsequently been infiltrated into the cavities produced by the boring animal. These appear to have been portions of shells distinguished by a striated texture, and were stated by Mr. Conybeare to resemble in structure the recent Pinna marina, as the genus Inoceramus does; but in addition to these, Mr. Conybeare found them connected with other shells, and even with an Echinus and Belemnite. Though Mr. Conybeare spoke with diffidence of his having brought before the Society a paper on such minute palæontology, it cannot be doubted that the interest connected with the discovery of the existence and workings of minute marine animals at so remote an epoch is of a very high order. The flints and other siliceous deposits of the chalk and other geological epochs, have indeed been striking examples of the effect of judicious investigation in rendering the most obscure objects the means of throwing light upon natural phenomena. Mr. Conybeare was fully aware of the necessity of studying physical as well as organic phenomena in connexion with geological science; and it is truly surprising how often the intimate connexion of the physical geography of remote epochs with their natural history is overlooked. His description of the landslip which occurred on the coast of Culverhole Point, near Axmouth, in December 1839, was ably illustrated by a series of lithographic plates from the drawings of the present Lieut. Colonel Dawson; and the magnitude of the results was well expressed by the following words: "Although this convulsion. can only be ascribed to the less dignified agency of the land-springs constantly undermining the sub-strata, yet, in the grandeur of the disturbances it has occasioned, it far exceeds the ravages of the earthquakes of Calabria, and almost rivals the vast volcanic fissures of the Val del Bove on the flanks of Etna." Without doubt these phenomena are very striking and interesting in themselves: but they become still more so when we reflect as Mr. Robert Mallet has taught us to do, that they ought not to be confined to the existing epoch alone, but should be sought for in the stony records of past ages. The paper on the Hydrographical Basin of the Thames, written with a view to determine the causes which had operated in forming the Valleys of the Thames and its tributary streams, is equally valuable as tending to maintain the value of attending to physical geography in geological investigations. His examination, also, of the Theory of Mountain chains, then recently propounded by M. Elie de Beaumont, as well as his remarks on the phenomena of geology which most directly bear on theoretical speculations, are proofs of the truly philosophical and enlarged view he took of his favorite science. In noticing the works of Dr. Buckland, I have already detailed the importance of the paper which was compiled by him in conjunction with Mr. Conybeare, on the Bristol and South Welsh Coal-fields; one, as I then observed, of those elaborate and comprehensive papers which were the fitting work of the first pioneers of geological science, and the difficulty of which can scarcely be appreciated in these times when the foundations. of the science have been fairly laid, and geologists have only to improve or correct the details. His remarks on the sections of the Antrim and Derry coast were also a conjoint work, and of much interest. Another and equally remarkable work was that undertaken in conjunction with the late Mr. William Philips, namely, the "Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales," as it may be considered the first systematic work on the subject; and, though geology has been since more specialized and studied in minuter detail, this work will always be regarded as a striking proof of the ability and knowledge of the authors. It was, however, in 1821 (April 6) that Mr. Conybeare communicated to the Society that remarkable Palæontological paper which excited so much interest at the time, and established in the most satisfactory manner the propriety of establishing a new genus of Reptilia, forming an intermediate link between the Ichthyosaurus and Crocodile, to which Mr. Conybeare gave the name of Plesiosaurus. The discovery of immense vertebræ of oviparous quadrupeds in the Lias near Bristol had attracted the attention of Mr. Conybeare, who quickly recognized the difference between those belonging to the Ichthyosaurus and others, which evidently in his opinion were portions of a different animal. With a singular acumen and rare sagacity, he placed the detached vertebræ in their proper position, and finally established his new genus, for which he adopted the name Plesiosaurus, as expressing its near approach to the order Lacerta. For the whole group of animals which approximate, on the one hand, to the crocodiles in general organization, and yet have been provided with such specific organs as were necessary to enable them to live, at least principally, in the sea, Mr. Conybeare proposed the name Enaliosauri, as a classic appellation for the whole order; and he observes of the genera composing it, that even the Ichthyosaurus, which recedes most widely from the forms of the Lizard family, and approaches nearest to those of fishes, exhibits in its osteology a beautiful series of analogies with that of the crocodile, and which widely remove it from fishes. In this paper he then described in the minutest detail the osteology of the Ichthyosaurus, and exhibited a knowledge of anatomy which excited the admiration of every one. He then examined with equal care the relics of the new genus, which, although at that time not complete, were sufficient to enable Mr. Cony beare to conclude that the vertebral column recedes from that of the Ichthyosaurus in all the points in which the latter approaches to the fishy structure, and that the invertebral substance must have been disposed much as in Cetacea; and that, from the locking together of the articulating processes, it must have had much less flexibility than in the Ichthyosaurus or in fishes. In examining also such portions of the paddles as could be arranged in order, he comes to a similar conclusion in another direction, namely, that the paddles of the Plesiosaurus are inter mediate in character between those of the Ichthyosaurus and the Sea-turtles; and thus in every respect he laid a sound foundation for his new genus. It is to be remarked that this paper was given as the joint production of Mr. Cony beare and Sir Henry De la Beche, to whom Mr. Conybeare most liberally ascribed a full share of the merit of the discovery; but, allowing Sir Henry every praise for his assistance in that discovery and in all the geological details, I believe the sagacity and skill exhibited in the osteological details and reasonings have always been ascribed to Mr. Cony beare. In a second paper, read May 3, 1822, Mr. Conybeare was enabled to describe much more fully all the relations of the genera Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, from the discovery of other remains, both of the Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, by his coadjutor Sir Henry De la Beche. A very minute examination of the teeth, especially, enabled him to point out that those of the Icthyosaurus were more intimately related to the teeth of the crocodile than to those of other Lacerta (an opinion then at variance with the opinions of some anatomists), whilst at the same time, in other respects, the analogy was in the other direction, for Conybeare observes, "in pursuing, however, the history of the teeth of the Ichthyosaurus to the last stage, we quit these analogies with the crocodile, and arrive at another point wherein the Ichthyosaurus resembles the other Lacerta, in common with many of the Mammalia: this is the gradual obliteration of the interior cavity in old age, by the ossification of the pulpy nucleus." In conjunction with Sir H. De la Beche he brought up the number of species to four, determined from the teeth; and in his further consideration of the genus it is right to notice the following remarks, proceeding from him after noticing a difference in one character of the fossil crocodile, when compared with the recent, as stated by Cuvier:-"I am persuaded from every circumstance, that a much nearer approximation to the structure of the older lacertian genera will be found in the fossil than in the recent crocodiles: interesting links in the chain of Saurian animals will be thus supplied, and it will probably be found that many of the points in which the Ichthyosaurus differs from the recent type are only instances of its agreement with the fossil." The researches of Sir H. De la Beche had not at this time led to the discovery of a complete skeleton of the new genus Plesiosaurus; but additional portions of it were found, including a very perfect dental bone of the lower jaw, whilst a tolerably perfect head was discovered by Mr. Thomas Clarke in the Lias of Street, near Glastonbury. The investigation of these new relics of the Plesiosaurus led Mr. Conybeare to the following conclusion: "On the whole then, the manner in which the ribs of the Plesiosaurus articulate throughout, by a single head, to the extremity of the transverse processes of the vertebræ only, the structure of the humerosternal parts, and the characters derived from the head, approximate this animal most nearly to the Lacerta. By its teeth, on the other hand, it is allied to the crocodile; while its small nostrils and multarticulate paddles are features in which it resembles the Ichthyosaurus." This able paper he concluded with words characteristic of his natural modesty, after pointing out the difficulty of rendering anatomical details at once scientifically accurate and yet attractive to a general audience: "I need not add how much these difficulties will be increased in the hands of a writer who must acknowledge that, while intruding on the province of the comparative anatomist, he stands on foreign ground, and, using almost a foreign language, is frequently driven to adopt an awkward periphrasis, where a single word from pen of a master would probably have been sufficient." the However some may at the time have been inclined to throw doubts upon the deductions of Cony beare, the ability and accurate discrimination of the author were publicly recognized by the great Cuvier, who hastened to advocate his admission to the French Academy as a Corresponding Member for the science of Geology; and I am sure that all living paleontologists will follow the example of the late well-known, and at that time so highly respected, Mr. Clift, in recognizing the great merits of Dean Conybeare, and considering him one of the principal founders of the science in this country. At the present moment it would be tedious and unnecessary to pass in review the whole of the long series of Mr. Cony beare's geological works, nineteen in number; and I shall point your attention therefore solely to that able "Report on the Progress, Actual State, and Ulterior Prospects of Geological Science,' which he presented to the British Association in 1832, at its meeting in Oxford, in which he treats the subject with the combined powers of the scholar and man of science, pointing out the remarkable analogy in the views of Leibnitz to those of many modern speculators on physical geology; the opinions of Hooke in respect to the hypothesis of the elevation of our continents by volcanic agency; the masterly observations of Smith, first made known in 1799, which, although not the first to originate the doctrine of a regular distribution of organic remains, yet reduced to certainty and order what had been before vague and conjectural; the gradual rise of the Tertiary Geology from its foundation in the admirable "Memoir on the Basin of Paris," by Cuvier and Brongniart, published in 1811; the establishment of the Geological Society in 1808, and the labors of all the great men connected with it, including, amongst many others, Greenough, Buckland, Sedgwick, Fitton, Murchison, De la Beche, Phil |