180 Reports and Proceedings — Oeohgical Society of London. 



Geological Society of London. 



I. — Annual General Meeting. — February 19, 1897. 



Dr. Henry Hicks, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The Secretaries read the Reports of the Council and of the 

 Library and Museum Committee for the year 1896. In the former 

 the Council referred to the uninterrupted financial prosperity of the 

 Society, and announced that, for the first time in a period of five 

 years, there had been an increase in the number of Fellows. 



During 1896 the number of Fellows elected was 62 : of these 48 

 qualified before the end of the year, making, with 11 previously 

 elected Fellows, a total accession of 59 in the course of the 

 twelvemonth. During the same lapse of time, the losses by death, 

 resignation, and removal amounted to 47, the increase in the 

 number of Fellows being 12. The total number of Fellows, 

 Foreign Members, and Foreign Correspondents stood at 1329 on 

 December 31, 1896, as compared with 1318 at the end of 1895. 



The balance-sheet for the year 1896 showed receipts to the 

 amount of £3728 Os. bd. (including a balance of £8,51 15s. 5d. 

 brought forward from the preceding year), and an expenditure of 

 £2959 17s. 5c?. There was an actual excess of expenditure over 

 current receipts of £83 12s. bd., but the excess was entirely due 

 to expenditure of a non-recurring character, and there still remained 

 at the end of 1896 a balance of £768 3s. available for the extra- 

 ordinary expenditure contemplated in the estimates submitted to 

 the Fellows. 



The completion of vol. lii of the Society's Quarterly Journal was 

 announced, as also the publication of No. 3 of the Record of 

 Geological Literature added to the Society's Library, and of Part I 

 of the General Index to the first fifty volumes of the Quarterly 

 Journal. It is hoped to issue to the Fellows the second part of 

 the Index within the next six months. 



The institution of a Fund, to be entitled the Geological Relief 

 Fund, of which the Council will be trustees, was announced. It is 

 proposed that the interest accruing from this fund should, from 

 time to time, be applied by the Council in aid of deserving Fellows. 

 The response to the appeal for subscriptions has not, so far, been 

 quite as general as the Council had ventured to hope. 



The question as to the desirability of transferring the Society's 

 Collections to the Trustees of the British Museum had been brought 

 up for consideration at a special general meeting on May 20 last, 

 and, after a prolonged discussion, the previous question had been 

 carried by 35 aj^es to 12 noes. 



In conclusion the awards of the various Medals and Proceeds of 

 Donation Funds in the gift of the Society were announced. 



The Report of the Library and Museum Committee enumerated 

 the large additions made during the past year to the Society's 

 Library, the most important of which was the presentation by 



