LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. XXV 
most zealous founders of the British School of Geology. His 
early labours, commencing more than half a century ago, on the 
geology of Hastings and its neighbourhood, and these, together 
with his works on the strata intervening between the chalk and 
oolite in the South-east of England and in the Isle of Wight, pub- 
lished as they were at an early period in the history of the science, 
speedily raised Dr. Fitton to a European reputation, which was 
not only maintained, but enhanced by his subsequent career. 
In 1827 he became President of the Geological Society, in which 
capacity he was the first to set the laudable and useful example, 
since so amply and ably followed by his successors, of giving an 
annual véswmé of the general progress of the science. In 1852 
he received the Wollaston Medal, presented to him by the Society 
for his eminent scientific services. Besides his strictly scientific 
publications, Dr. Fitton contributed several articles on the early 
history of geology to the ‘Quarterly Review’ and other periodicals. 
John Stevens Henslow. As I feel that it would be impossible 
for me to do equal justice to the subject of the following notice, 
or to express in anything like such adequate terms what is due to 
the memory of Professor Henslow, I have thought it better, with 
the due permission, to insert in the records of the Linnean So- 
ciety, the eloquent and complete account of his life and labours 
contained in the pages of the ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle’ for June 
1, 8, and 15, 1861. 
“There are few men whose loss will be more generally deplored, 
whether as a clergyman or as a man of science, than the subject 
of this notice; nor are these his only claims to be regarded as 
a benefactor of his race, for there are few whose personal influence 
for good on the social, moral, and religious characters of those 
with whom he has been associated or laboured, has been so deeply 
felt or so gratefully acknowledged. To give even a sketch of 
the varied attainments and personal qualifications that were so 
blended in Prof. Henslow as to render him at once the most popular 
and useful man of science of his*day, is quite impossible here ; for 
they depended on a combination of rare qualities of head and heart ; 
each natural, but all well trained and conscientiously cultivated by 
their possessor during a long period of his life. Amongst them, 
however, should be mentioned some personal and other features, 
which, as being in a great measure due to temperament and mental 
endowment, were inherent and characteristic of all periods of his 
life: these were a sense of truth and fair play, so instinctive, that 
deception or even reticence when the cause of truth was at stake 
