Rev. J. EB. Fackson’s Address. 27 
secure and to perpetuate the wealth of a man’s mind. If he has 
not done that himself, before he dies; if he has not put his own 
thoughts and knowledge into shape; into such a shape that his 
successors may make use of it; then all his acquisitions will be for 
ever lost. 
It is, therefore, a point in the intentions of this Socicty, to secure, 
if possible, the fruits of the labour of those who may have turned 
their attention to the subjects which it would encourage ; to invite 
them to make, for general information, a contribution from their 
private store of knowledge. In case of their death, it would be 
glad to secure such papers upon these subjects as they may have 
left, and which on those occasions are often overlooked and. lost. 
It is for want of some system of collecting and preserving, that the 
same ground has so often to be trodden over and over again. One 
generation follows in the track of another ; makes the same inquiries ; 
reaches the same point; leaves nothing for the next to start with ; 
and so no progress is made. No doubt amongst the many genera- 
tions of men who have lived and died in this county before ourselves, 
there have been those who knew, and could have told us, all about 
it. I only wish they had. I wish they had only been so provident 
as to form a Society for handing down to their successors the con- 
quests they had made. If they had done so, we might have turned 
our attention to something else. 
I do not therefore think that we already know all that may 
be known about our county. Take one branch only of Natural 
History, the science of Geology ; by which is meant, in its widest 
sense, the history of the structure of the earth, but which, as the 
word is commonly used, means only the history of the fossils and 
minerals which it contains. Those who have never turned their 
attention to this particular subject have very little notion of the. 
wonderful discoveries that have been made even during the last ten 
ears. At the beginning of the present century, the most ridicu- 
ous ideas prevailed about fossils. Those curious stones which are 
_ now so well understood to be the remains of ancient animals and 
plants successively entombed in the crust of the earth, were looked 
upon as monstrosities, /usus nature: and the most childish interpre- 
tations, as they now seem, were put upon them by men otherwise 
not wanting in knowledge. There is nothing in the history of the 
owth of science more remarkable than the rapid progress of 
eology. Even those who at first opposed it as hostile to Scriptural 
truth, have found that it is more of an auxiliary than an enemy. 
The very structure of the earth, (i.c., of the crust of it,) so beauti- 
fully arranged as it is to provide us who move on the surface, with 
every variety of material, every variety of useful produce ; this 
circumstance, as well as the marks of order and adaptation to their 
a found in the animals and plants whose remains occur in a 
ossil stute—all this bespeaks, as strongly as any example that 
E 2 
