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Having now. Gentlemen, completed the term of my service, I 

 bid you farewell, as friends in whose society, whilst acquiring know- 

 ledge, I have passed the happiest days of my life. Large as our 

 numbei-s are, and branching out, as "bur inquiries do, into all the 

 paths of philosophic research, the Geological Society has always 

 held firmly together by a principle of good and high feeling among 

 its active menibers. I have, indeed, deeply felt the honour of pre- 

 siding over men who, in the course oT a quarter of a century, have 

 demonstrated, that there is no such thing as " odium geologicum," and 

 whose members, rivals as they must be, have only sought to excel 

 each other in their ardent search after truth. 



By the choice of my successor you cannot fail to perpetuate this 

 good feeling, for in him you recognize the philosopher, who, passing 

 through other phases, returns to the object of his first love. In him 

 you applaud one of the founders of your Society, a munificent sup- 

 porter of geological works requiring assistance, one of your earliest 

 contributors, and one, I will add, of the best Secretaries you ever 

 had — whether as respected the performance of his own duties or the 

 singleness of mind and integrity of purpose with which, abjuring all 

 personal considei'ations, he improved the Memoirs of various writers 

 which found their way into your Transactions. His fitting reward, 

 therefore, is this Chair, which I resign to him in the full persuasion 

 that he will view it, as I have done, in the light of the highest honour 

 to which a geologist can aspire ; and that as one of our old and sin- 

 cere friends, he will ever be imbued with the strongest motives for 

 preserving the harmony and prosperity of the Geological Society. 



