Page:Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Volume 1.djvu/10



Geological Survey of Great Britain having been transferred from the Ordnance to the charge of the Chief Commissioner of Her Majesty's Woods, Works, and Land Revenues, in April, 1845, and its extension into Ireland at the same time ordered, so that the Geological Survey became that of the United Kingdom, it was considered expedient that, instead of publications by a single person (such as the Report on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, by Sir Henry De la Beche, or the work on the Palæozoic Fossils of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, by Professor John Phillips) Memoirs by different persons engaged on the Survey, and contained in the same volume should be substituted.

It was farther thought advisable that these Memoirs should be divided into two series, one for Great Britain, the other for Ireland; the volumes of the former also containing memoirs by the officers attached to the Museum of Economic Geology in London, while those of the latter also included such communications from the Museum of Economic Geology in Dublin, as the head of that establishment might consider appropriate.

The present volume is the first of the series for Great Britain. It has so occurred that into it subjects connected with general views in geology and its applications, have been chiefly introduced. It must not, however, be hence inferred that local descriptions of country will not be frequent, it being desirable to publish the two classes of memoirs, both being alike necessary properly to illustrate the various subjects to be considered in this work. The second volume of the series for Great Britain will commence with an elaborate and detailed description of the Malvern Hills, compared with the Palæozoic districts of Abberley, &c., by Professor John Phillips.

A series of engraved representations of British fossils, illustrative of the researches of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and Ireland,