VOL. XV: (2) THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS 75 
with themselves to read the past, and thus better under- 
stand the present, and also to endeavour to determine 
what the future may have in store. 
If I make no mention of what the columns of the daily 
or weekly press have to show, in regard to the energy of 
certain of our Club, it is not because I despise that energy, 
or the direction it took when vented forth. For, honestly 
speaking, light has been shown in many a dark place, and 
much pure sophism has been brushed aside by the 
merciless logic and common sense of those whose efforts - 
I am thinking of. It is much to be thankful for when the 
correspondence columns of our local papers—to look no 
further afield—are open to the letters of other than mere 
chatterers. 
But to return to some of the more severe efforts of our 
members. 
Surely first (and that not merely because we would 
wish to thus thank him for his unstinted zeal for our 
club, and his ungrudging expenditure of time and trouble 
in our service, but because it deserves to be referred to 
first upon its own intrinsic merits), I must mention that 
most excellent book, “A Handbook to the Geology of Chel- 
tenham and Neighbourhood,” by our esteemed honorary 
secretary. And, perhaps, here is the place where I may 
be allowed in public to congratulate Mr Richardson upon 
- the honour which the Geological Society of London con- 
ferred upon him when they awarded him, as they did last 
year, the Daniel-Pigeon Award. 
Our Secretary has published much besides the before- 
named attractive and illuminating handbook. - We all 
know what his own special subject is, and we have 
had from time to time opportunities of listening to the 
results of his investigations. He has given to a larger 
public the fruits of his labours in the Quarterly Journal of 
the Geological Society, in the Geological Magazine, in the 
G2 
