iv Proceedings. 
they should communicate their several Reports to the general 
Secretary, for inclusion in a general Report. 
You see, then, that I have a strong feeling that a President 
should be saved from work as much as possible: it is the business 
of a Secretary to do the writing for a Society, whilst a President 
has only to do right. Being somewhat of an evolutionist, or 
revolutionist, which are much the same thing, the difference 
between them being one of amount only—I venture to break 
through the established rule, and I propose to draw your 
attention not so much to what we have done ourselves as to 
what other folk have done for us,—to give you a short account 
of work that has been done on the Geology of Surrey during 
the nineties. Naturally, as ours is a general and not a special 
Society, this greatly exceeds our own geologic work, and there- 
fore it is all the more important that we should know of it. 
During the period named, however, our Society has made good 
contributions to our stock of knowledge of local geology, by the 
publication of the papers abbreviated titles of which are given 
below, and of accounts of various excursions. 
W.M. Holmes. Glauconite Casts from Godstone Firestone. 
W.M. Holmes. Microscopic Structure of Hearthstone from 
Betchworth. 
W. Whitaker. Surrey Wells. 
Dr. Parsons. Sewer Section at Park Hill Rise. 
Dr. Hinde. Gravels of Croydon and its Neighbourhood (a 
paper of general as well as of local interest). 
N. F. Robarts. Occurrence of Mammalian Remains near 
Purley. 
W. Whitaker and E. T. Newton. Drift Deposit at Carshalton. — 
It seemed to me that if my retrospect were carried back for 
ten years that would be enough, especially as in 1889 a fairly 
exhaustive account of our Tertiary ,Beds, including the Drift 
associated with them, was given-in a Geological Survey Memoir.* 
Comparatively little of the work that I have to bring before you 
refers to the tract covered by that Memoir. 
1890. 
Part III. of Sir J. Presrwicu’s Papers on the Westleton Beds 
is devoted to The Southern Drift,} and its distribution in Surrey 
is treated of on pp. 158-160. The best exhibition of this is on 
the Tertiary hills, in the gravel of Norwood, of Wimbledon 
Common, of St. George’s Hill near Weybridge, and of Chobham 
Ridges. 
The valley of Smitham Bottom is noticed (pp. 171-178). The 
* The Geology of London, &c. 2 vols. 
t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlvi, pp. 155-181, pl. viii. 
