534 Geological Society : Anniversary Address. 



The meetings held for the purpose of forwarding Count Bour- 

 non's work by some of the most distinguished mineralogists of that 

 day, when collections in geology were rare, was one of the steps that 

 brought together our first founders : many of them were till then 

 strangers to each other, and being thus accidentally introduced, they 

 resolved from thenceforth to cooperate for the furtherance of objects 

 in which they felt a common interest, and became the germ of the 

 Geological Society. 



Sir John St. Aubyn was at this time occupied, like his friends 

 Sir Abraham Hume and Mr. Greville, in making large and costly 

 additions to his cabinet of simple minerals, the nucleus of which 

 consisted of the specimens he had purchased of Dr. Babington in 

 the year 1799, and which are described by Babington in his cata- 

 logue (one vol. 4to) published in the same year. These specimens 

 had previously been the property of Lord Bute. 



The position of his seat at Clowance, in the centre of the greatest 

 mining district of Cornwall, afforded facilities for acquiring the most 

 choice productions of that great repository of mineral ogical trea- 

 sures, and of these facilities he assiduously availed himself during 

 many years. His other seat on the picturesque granitic pinnacle 

 of St. Michael's Mount in the bay of Penzance (the Ictis of Dio- 

 dorus, from tvTience the Romans exported tin to Gaul), placed him in 

 another position of high geological and mineralogical advantages ; 

 the granite veins that intersect the killas at the base of this classic 

 mountain being among the first described and most instructive in- 

 stances which Cornwall affords, of the important phsenomena of the 

 injection of granite into slate, and the metamorphic condition of 

 the slate thence resulting ; whilst a well-exposed tin vein at the base 

 of the ancient fortress and monastery that crown this insulated 

 mountain, affords specimens of Apatite, and is more richly studded 

 with minute but perfect crystals of topaz than any other vein known 

 to exist in this country. These easily accessible examples of phae- 

 nomena, most highly interesting to the mineralogist and geologist, 

 he carefully preserved for the inspection of the numerous visitors 

 that are continually attracted to this spot of threefold interest, to 

 the antiquary, the artist, and the mineral philosopher. 



A similar zeal for the preservation of interesting scientific objects 

 induced Dr. Jenner to preserve, for the benefit of geological visitors, 

 a rock which presented the rare phenomenon of organic remains 

 intermixed with toad-stone, on the side of a trap dyke intersecting 

 old red sandstone at Newport, near his residence at Berkeley. 



To the nucleus formed by Dr. Babington's collection, Sir John 

 St. Aubyn made large additions, not only from the productions of 

 Cornwall, but also from foreign countries, particularly the mines of 

 Germany and Hungary, many of which are no longer wrought. 

 This collection was very rich in the ores of gold, silver, copper, 

 and other metals, and particularly in native diamonds and gems. 

 The arrangement of it was begun by Count Bournon, but subse- 

 quently completed after the system of Mohs. 



In 1834 he presented the bulk of his collection to the Devonport 

 Civil and Military Library, of which he had been annually appointed 



