THE president's ADDRESS. 179 



welcome contribution to our literatiire; and all lovers of fair-play, 

 and none more so than Mr. Henwood himself, will agree that 

 attention should be directed to it in a Society that has already 

 had the subject brought under its consideration. It is gracefully 

 admitted in the Iron, that should the advocates of Trevithick 

 be obliged to surrender the point at issue, the inventor of the 

 ' ' locomotive now so universally doing the work of horses all over 

 the world," must ever be remembered as a great engineer. 



In reverting to the corporate doings of this Society, I may 

 remind you that I had occasion, a year since, to set before you 

 the causes that led us to forego the project of publishing, at our 

 own hazard, a complete Bibliotheca Gornubiensis. Yet we remain 

 true to the principles that formerly animated us. In the number 

 of our Journal just published, there is contained a "List of 

 "Works on the Geology, Mineralogy, and Palaeontology of Corn- 

 wall, by WUliam Whitaker, B.A. (Lond.), of the Geological 

 Survey of England," than whom there can be no more competent 

 authority in such literature. The paper may have a dull aspect 

 to the general reader, but such records are found to be great 

 boons to diligent and conscientious labourers in the particular 

 fields to which they relate ; and I am satisfied that none of you 

 wiU grudge the money it may have cost us to put this catalogue 

 in print. 



It would be an act of impertinence in me to offer any estimate 

 of my own, as to the relative importance of the papers which 

 have been selected by your Council for publication in your 

 Journal, and it is with no such purpose that I refer to any one 

 of them. But it has occurred to me that it might not be 

 uninstructive to the less initiated of my audience, if I were, 

 in conjunction with the mention of one which presents us with 

 a mere list of the titles of Kterary contributions on a given 

 subject, to make a few remarks upon some of the modes in which 

 authors who fail to be accurate in their references are apt to 

 convey a wrong impression to their readers of the literary 

 material they have, or might have availed themselves of in the 

 composition of their own works. It is not that I have been on 

 the look out for instances in illustration, but I find enough for 

 my purpose by arraying a few facts that I have had personal 

 inducements to scrutinize. 



