173 
many excursions in the neighbourhood, and it was, I believe, 
from these gentlemen that he first derived a taste for geologi- 
cal pursuits. Mr Symonds was elected a member of the Club 
in January 1853, and he contributed two papers to the Pro- 
ceedings :— 
(1.) The Drifts—Severn, Wye, Avon and Usk. 
(2.) Geology and Archzology of the South Malvern District. 
For many years he regularly attended our Annual Meetings, 
and always took a prominent part in the discussions, and we 
shall never forget how much we were indebted to him, for the 
numerous clear addresses he gave at the Field Meetings, and 
the instructions we derived from his eloquent expositions of 
difficult points of Physical Geology, in which he was a master. 
To one of these expositions I wish particularly to refer. 
In May 1874, ata Meeting of the Club at Newent, he gave a 
paper on the Newent Coal Fields, and shewed conclusively that 
the attempts which were then being made near there, to develop 
a coal industry would be a failure. He had warned the pro- 
moters that they would be disappointed, but his practical 
geological knowledge was disregarded, and the working was 
only abandoned after great loss had been sustained. He took 
@ warm interest in ‘ Field Clubs,’ was President of the Malvern 
in 1853, and for some. years afterwards, and was mainly 
instrumental in establishing the Woolhope Club, of which he 
became President in 1854. He was never happier than when 
accompanying young persons, of both sexes, to some favorite 
quarry or drift section, in his own Malvern area, and many of 
his friends date their first love of Natural History to his forcible 
and clear expositions, and to the enthusiasm he threw into his 
subject in those delightful excursions. Few geologists had 
made a wider range of observations, as there was hardly a 
district of interest in Great Britain that he had not investi- 
gated. With some old friends, he made several excursions 
abroad, and he wrote two papers on the ‘Extinct Volcanoes 
of Auvergne.’ To various Field Clubs and scientific periodicals 
he contributed about forty papers, besides having written 
several very interesting books; the last brochure was on ‘The 
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