178 THE president's ADDRESS. 



to the Royal Cornwall Geological Society, many of his first 

 essays concerning them were communicated ; and many are the 

 attached friends he may still count in these parts. 



It is also exceedingly gratifying to read in the Athenajum as 

 follows in reference to so old and esteemed a Member of this 

 Institution : — " for the Arctic Expedition, Mr. Robert Were Fox, 

 F.R.S., has been superintending the construction of two of his 

 dipping needles, and notwithstanding his advanced age, eighty- 

 six years, has himself made the final adjustments of these delicate 

 instruments, which have been made by Mr. Olive of Falmouth." 



In his presidential address in this room in 1871 Mr. Henwood, 

 F.R.S., traces back the improvements that have been made in 

 our mining steam-engines to their several inventors. The 

 graphic manner in which he draws the line between the respective 

 claims of Trevithick and Woolf, following quickly upon the 

 "Life of Richard Trevithick," by Francis Trevithick, has incited 

 one of our members, Mr. Samuel Hocking, of Camborne, who 

 from 1828 to 1833 was a pupil of Woolf 's, to send to the "Iron 

 (The Journal of Science, Metals, and Manufacture,") for the 

 No.'s of July 11, 18, and 25 last, some notes'^' on the "Labours 

 of Ai-thur Woolf," in which he warmly seeks to demonstrate 

 that the credit which is due to his old master for inventions, 

 which are found to be effective in economizing fuel through the 

 mode of employing high pressure steam, have been wrongly 

 ascribed, both by the son and Mr. Henwood, to Trevithick. 

 In support of this allegation, he not only relies upon his 

 recollections of his conversations with Woolf, but he has been 

 at great pains to get together written evidence of his wanderings 

 and occupations through certain years of his life (showing 

 that he could not then have been, as had been believed, 

 in the employ of Trevithick), which he regards as having a 

 critical import with respect to the rival claims. He concludes 

 by endeavouring to explain the facts upon which the cause of 

 Trevithick rests in a manner that is consistent with that he 

 asserts. Additional information rescued from oblivion upon a 

 question of so much interest — no matter on which side it may 

 tend to make the balance incline — cannot be otherwise than a 



* In substance these notes were read on June 30, before the " Miners' 

 Association of Cornwall and Devon," and since the above remarks were made, 

 have appeared in their Report for 1874. 



