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XIV.— A GEOLOGIST'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTOEY 

 OE ANCIENT INDIA, BEING THE PRESIDENTIAL 

 ADDRESS TO THE ROYAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

 OF IRELAND. By PROFESSOR Y. BALL, M.A., F.R.S., 

 F.G.S. 



[Bead, March 19, 1883.] 



It has devolved upon me,, somewhat out of the ordinary course, 

 to deliver to you an address at the commencement of my term of 

 office. The ill health of the late Professor Leith Adams precluded 

 his addressing you last year, and the duty was undertaken by the 

 Eev. Dr. Haughton, whose long connexion with this Society ren- 

 dered it particularly fitting that he, who for many years has been 

 its principal stay and supporter, should be our President on the 

 occasion of this celebration of our fiftieth anniversary. 



Having completed one year of office he has resigned, and pro- 

 posed my election as his successor. This proposition having been 

 adopted by the Council, and ratified by the Society at large, I find 

 myself placed in this honourable position at a period when my 

 service to the Society has been but of short duration, and my con- 

 nexion with the progress of geological research in Ireland of still 

 less niature age. 



I have to thank you very sincerely for the high honour you 

 have conferred upon me. It is a source of extreme gratification to 

 me to find myself enrolled on the now long list of Presidents of 

 the Royal Geological Society of Ireland. Since that first meeting 

 of the Society, held in the Provost's house in November, 1831, 

 there have been periods of great prosperity, as necessarily there 

 must have been, since so many men of distinction who have held 

 office were active in the furthering of the objects expressly laid 

 down at the time of incorporation.' 



1 At a meeting held at the Provost's house November 29, 1831, it was resolved :— 

 "That the gentlemen present do form a society for the purpose of investigating the 

 mineral structure of the earth, and more particularly of Ireland, to be called the Geolo- 

 gical Society of DubHn, and that to promote this investigation the Society shall hold 

 periodical meetings, collect books, maps, specimens, and other objects relating to geo- 

 logy and mineralogy, arrange the collection in a museum according to the most approved 

 classifications, publish papers and essays , and contribute in every other possible manner 

 to the progress of geological science." — Extract from Minute Book. 



