67 



as the seat of his mining operations. Aware that this little elevated 

 and detached coal-field was surrounded by older rocks, and that no 

 similar mass was to be found between it and the heart of the adja- 

 cent country of Wales, he saw that by piercing the basalt by which 

 it was covered, and by opening out the mountain in a scientific 

 manner, he would render himself, to a great extent, the supplier of 

 fuel to a large region. By this successful enterprise he amassed a 

 considerable fortune, which he employed in hospitality and bene- 

 volence during a long and well-spent life. 



OFFICIAL CHANGES. 



The official change occasioned by the retirement of Mr. Lonsdale 

 having been adverted to in the Report of the Council, and the warmest 

 thanks of this Meeting having been voted to him, I would now ex- 

 press my own sense of the meritorious services of that officer. 



Fourteen years. Gentlemen, have elapsed since his appointment 

 was made ; during which time your collections and your volumes at- 

 test the arduous and -successful labours of your Curator and Libra- 

 rian. Reorganizing our Museum, and naming a multitude of spe- 

 cies after most elaborate comparisons Avith foreign and British types, 

 he, at the same time, undertook and performed nearly the whole of 

 the scientific duties which M'ere formerly discharged in great mea- 

 sure by our honorary secretaries ; and this too at a period when 

 currents of fresh knowledge were rapidly setting in, and when our 

 literary machinery had been rendered much more complex than in 

 the early days of our body, through the addition of long and well- 

 digested Proceedings, Avhich were chiefly prepared by him. 



All these duties wei'e executed with a fidelity and singleness of 

 purpose, an ability, and a consummate knowledge of the whole subject 

 confixled to him, which entitle him to our deepest gratitude, and 

 fully justify me in saying that our Transactions, Proceedings, and 

 Collections of the last fourteen years are the real monuments of Mr. 

 Lonsdale's labours. Alas ! such efforts are more than one man can 

 continuously sustain ; and the loss of health which ensued, compelled 

 our Curator to sever those ties by which he had been connected 

 with us. 



It is not, however, to official duties only that I must now advert ; 

 for the various works of Mr. Lonsdale, also published during the 

 same period, prove clearly how much science might have received at 

 his hands, had they not been bound by the trammels of official duty. 

 Llis new arrangement of certain strata in the Oolitic series, — his 

 important and original suggestion of the existence of an intermediary 

 type of Palseozoic fossils, since called Devonian, — and his masterly 

 description of the Sdurian Corals, are alone sufficient proofs of the 

 vigour and accuracy of his researches. Placing in him the most 

 entire confidence, and committing to his use, for a season, the 

 proceeds of the WoUaston fund, this Society was amply repaid by 

 the elaborate survey of a long range of the oolitic escarpments from 

 the south-western country, with which he had long been familiar, 

 to the Humber — a survey, from which, I venture to say, Sir Henry 



