10 FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 
accused of neglecting pecuniary rewards for their services, 
and gratifying their ambition by the acquisition of literary 
or scientific reputation. It had been his lot a quarter of 
a century ago, to take possession within that county of a 
large manor—a manor that interfered not with the rights 
of noble lords or honorable gentlemen, but a scientific manor 
in which whatever he had done was convertible, if they 
pleased, to their pecuniary advantage. It had been his 
lot before he obtained the assistance of his kind friend the 
Dean of Llandaff, in the completion of this work, during 
three of the most interesting weeks of his life to travel in 
solitude—his only companion being an ordnance map, 
which he had geologically coloured on the spot—over the 
whole of Mendip, from one end to the other, for the first 
time that it was ever traversed by any individual of the 
human species, employed, and successfully employed, in 
ascertaining by personal inspection, the structure of that 
important range of hills. It had been his lot to traverse 
the whole of that small mountain chain, and at the end of 
three weeks, when he had finished his geological map of 
the distriet, and stood alone on one of the highest crests 
of Mendip, viz. on Blackdown, he felt a pride which he 
never felt before or since ; he felt a pride which he 
trusted it was not improper for him to feel—that he was 
the first of the human race whom God had permitted to 
understand the geological construction of His glorious works 
in that important part of the county of Somerset. He had 
occasion during many years to traverse this county on his 
way to and from Oxford, and there were few villages in it, 
of which he did not know the composition from personal 
inspection. And he could tell many of them, where they 
could not find the treasures of coal which interested adven- 
turers would fain persuade them to seek to their great cost 
