I Have the pleasure of congratulating the Society on its prosperous condition after an existence of forty years, during which time it has numbered amongst its members men of the highest distinction in Science, and has been presided over by some of the most illustrious amongst the Cultivators of Geology. In looking over the names of the first officers of the Society in 1833, I am rejoiced to see those of the Provost of Trinity College, Sir E. Griffith, and Professor Apjohn, who are still amongst us; and to myself it could not have been otherwise than a matter of high gratification to have been elected to an office which has been filled by such eminent men as the former Presidents of this Society.

In the seventh volume of the Geological Magazine I gave a description, accompanied by illustrations, of all the Brachiopoda then known to me from the Tertiary formations of Italy. I would now offer some notes and figures relative to those that occur in Belgium.

Polyzoary calcareous, sessile, and encrusting, forming systems of small circular discs, the upper surfaces of which are marked with radiating ridges, upon which the cells are carried. Each disc is attached by its entire lower surface, slightly convex above, with a central non-poriferous space, round which a number of radiating poriferous ridges occupy an exterior slightly elevated zone. Cells forming a double series on each ridge, immersed, with rounded mouths, which are not elevated in any part of their circumference above the general surface.

There appear to be two or three obstacles in the way of a proper classification of fossil fishes, and of obtaining sufficient data to establish the earliest period cf the earth's formation, during the deposition of which any particular fish existed, the principal obstruction being caused by the disconnected manner in which the researches have been carried on; for palæontologists; as a rule, confine themselves to the fauna or flora of the formations that are most exposed in their localities, either by nature or by the hand of man.

Let us now consider the recent drifts that in other places are being formed at the present day. In portions of the sea-coast of Western Ireland, but especially in Galway and Mayo, there are clifis of glacial drift margining the Atlantic. These are degrading away yearly, the detritus being carried away to form submarine and estuarine deposits.