122 PROFESSORSHIP OF GEOLOGY CHAP, iv 



the dining fraternity to which, as already described, he 

 had been introduced by Murchison on his first coming 

 to London. Founded in 1824, it consists of Fellows 

 of the Geological Society, limited in number to thirty- 

 six, who are wont to dine on the evenings of the 

 Society s meetings, and to adjourn from the dinner to 

 the meeting. The Club thus serves a double purpose ; 

 it brings its members into closer and more social con 

 tact with each other than is possible in the Society s 

 rooms, and it secures the nucleus of an audience at the 

 evening meeting afterwards. The Society s apart 

 ments were at this time in Somerset House, and the 

 Club met in some restaurant in the near neighbour 

 hood. At first the dinners took place at the * Crown 

 and Anchor Tavern until that noted establishment 

 was closed in 1847. The Club then moved to Clunn s 

 Hotel, Covent Garden. 



Since the removal of the Society s apartments, in 

 the year 1873, to Burlington House, the old-fashioned 

 dining-houses in the region of the Strand have been 

 forsaken for others nearer the place of meeting a 

 change still regretted by some who remember affec 

 tionately the dingy but cosy dens where they used to 

 dine a generation ago. 



A few memoranda regarding the Society and the 

 Club occur in Ramsay s diary of this winter. Thus 

 on the 5th January 1848 he notes : * Dined at the Geo 

 logical Club, Clunn s Hotel, Covent Garden, for the first 

 time since becoming a member. Selwyn accompanied 

 Sir Henry, who was in the chair ; all the rest were 

 Horner 1 and Prevost, so we were but five. The 



1 Leonard Horner, born 1785, died 1864; one of the early fellows of the 

 Geological Society, and twice elected its President. One of his daughters 

 became the wife of Sir Charles Lyell. 



