6 AUGUST 1864, Page 22

Address at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society.

By Sir Roderick I. Murchison, President.—This address gives a most clear and interesting account of the progress of geography during the peat year. The most remarkable feat has been performed by .Mr. Gifford Palgrave, who in the capacity of a physician has crossed the northern and central parts of the almost unknown peninsula of Arabia. The glacier theory affords Sir Roderick an opportunity for dilating on a subject which he is specially qualified to deal with. The recent ex- amination of the glaciers of the Himalayas and New Zealand -leads him to the conclusion that the theory which attributes to the ice the power of excavating—for instance, the Swiss lakes—is unsound.