In this paper the author referred to the labours of Dr William Smith, who published his “Tabular View of the British Strata” in 1790, and remarked that since that period geology had been studied mainly in the direction of Palæontology. Physical, chemical, and dynamic geology, were left almost unregarded by the great masters of the science, who generally accepted the speculations of Hutton and the experiments of Hall, as demonstrating the igneous origin of the primary rocks.