( 140 ) 



jiddress to the Geological Society, at the Anniversary on the 1 Qth 

 of February 1838. By the Rev. William Whewell, 

 M. A., F. R. S., President of the Society. 



Gentlemen, 



You have heard in the reports just read, statements which 

 shew that the society is in a state of healthy progress both in 

 respect to its numbers and its funds. The total number of 

 Fellows of the Society, exclusive of the Honorary and Foreign 

 Members, at the close of the year 1836, was 709. At the 

 close of the last year it was 738, the increase being 29, after 

 deducting 18 members deceased or resigned. 



A part of the Transactions has recently been published, 

 which is worthy of its predecessors in the interest of its matter. 

 and which is not inferior to them in its appearance and illustra- 

 tions. I believe it will be found that improvements have been 

 introduced, especially in the colouring of the maps. 



Our collections have also gone on increasing, and have, as in 

 previous years, derived great additional value from the labour 

 and knowledge bestowed upon them by our excellent curator. 

 But your Council has found itself compelled to attend to the 

 great, and I may say intolerable amount of labour which has 

 fallen upon Mr Lonsdale, and certain alterations in the Society's 

 arrangements, directed to the object of remedying this evil, are 

 now in progress or in contemplation. When they are com- 

 pleted I shall have the satisfaction of announcing them to the 

 Society. 



The Council have awarded the "WoUaston Medal, as you have already been 

 informed, to Mr Richard Owen, for his general services to Fossil Zoology, 

 and especially for his labours employed upon the fossil mammalia collected 

 by Mr Darwin in the voyage of Captain Fitz Roy. I need not remind you, 

 Gentlemen, how close are the ties which connect the study of living and of 

 fossil animals ; how much light the progress of comparative anatomy throws 

 upon the interpretation of geological characters ; and what important steps 

 in our knowledge of the past condition of the earth are restorations of the 

 animal forms which peopled its surface in former times, but have long va- 

 nished away. Since the immortal Cuvier breathed into our science a new 

 principle of life, the value of such researches has ever been duly appreciated ; 



