XXxvi Annuul Report. [ February, 1906, 
because, if the Society is to flourish and maintain its reputation 
as a learned body, it can only be by the publication of original 
contributions of its members. The researches of Dr, Blanford 
related principally to Geology and the cognate branches of natural 
science, namely, Geography and Zoology, but it must not be sup- 
posed that they recorded merely details of observation, for many 
of them treated of the fundamental principles of Geology and 
Zoology and are rightly regarded -as classical memoirs in the 
history of those sciences. Reference may specially be made to 
his remarkable address to the British Association at Montrea 
in 1884, delivered as President of the Geological section ; and his 
equally important address to the Geological Society of London 
when he was its President five years later. In the first of these 
addresses, he demonstrated the truth of Huxley’s Theory of 
Homotaxis, in the descent of isolated faunas and floras, and inthe 
second, he strengthened the theory of land connection in former 
times in certain cases across what are now broad and deep oceans. 
These generalisations were the result of inferences drawn from a 
mass of details indicating the accuracy which always characterized 
the guide of colliery managers. It is impossible, I think, to 
estimate too highly the practical utility of these maps in explor- 
ing the mineral resources of the country. TI do not, use, therefore, 
the language of mere platitude when I say that, by the death of Dr. 
Blanford, we have lost from our ranks a man remarkable for his 
i advance- 
ment of science, and that the members of this Society will fail 
in their duty if they do not raise in his memory a suitable memo- 
and antiquities. That such a result is more than likely will be 
obvious, if we reme 
