2 Life of R. A. C. Qodicin-Austen. 



heiress of the late General Sir Henry T. Godwin, K.C.B. (who com- 

 manded the British Army in Pegu and Burma), He took the 

 additional name of Godwin by Royal licence in 1854. 



On March 19th, 1830, Mr. Austen, then of Lincoln's Inn, was 

 elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. Sedgwick 

 was then President of the Society, and Lyell, Horner, Buckland, 

 De la Beche, Murchison, Greenough, and Whewell, were among the 

 prominent Members of its Council. Mr. Austen's certificate was 

 signed by the three first-named geologists. 



Four years later (November 19, 1834) Mr. Austen read his first 

 paper before the Society, and from that date, until within the last 

 few years, he never ceased to take an active part in its proceedings. 

 In 1841 he was elected a Member of the Council of the Society, 

 and in 1843 and 1844, and again subsequently, he acted as one of 

 the Honorary Secretaries. He has also filled the post of Foreign 

 Secretary and served as Vice-President. Never, however, vi^as he 

 appointed to the Presidential Chair of the Society, although, we 

 believe, he was repeatedly solicited to accept the honour : and cer- 

 tainly no one ever possessed higher qualifications for the office. 



Mr. Austen became a Member of the British Association in 1846, 

 and he occupied the Presidential Chair of the Geological Section 

 at Norwich in 1868, and again at Brighton in 1872. He was elected 

 a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1849. 



Soon after being elected a Fellow of the Geological Society, Mr. 

 Austen went to reside at Ogwell House, near Newton Abbot. Devon- 

 shire thus early became the seat of his field-labours, and his associa- 

 tion with De la Beche, whose book entitled " Eesearches in Theoretical 

 Geology" (published in 1834), has ever been looked on as one of the 

 most philoKSophical works on the science, no doubt inspired the younger 

 geologist, who became as it were a disciple of that great master. 



De la Beche mentions that in the district extending from Dart- 

 mouth to Chudleigh, he was principally indebted for the lines on this 

 part of the Geological Survey Map of Devon to Mr. Austen, who 

 had examined the district in great detail,^ Prof. Phillips, too, 

 mentions the " splendid series of fossils, chiefly from the calcareous 

 strata of the vicinity of Newton Bushel, the fruit of the personal 

 exertions of Mr. Austen during his residence at Ogwell House." ^ 

 These fossils were subsequently presented to the Museum at Jermj'n 

 Street. 



Mr. Austen's observations are recorded in his paper on the South- 

 east of Devonshire, in which are embodied the separate communi- 

 cations on the district, made to the Geological Society of London 

 during the years 1834-1840. The map accompanying this paper 

 shows the area investigated and described by the author, and was 

 at the time one of the most detailed geological maps published. In 

 the mean time the observations of Sedgwick and Murchison, aided 

 by the palEeontological labours of Lonsdale, had led to the founda- 



^ Report on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon, and "West Somerset, 1839, p. 69. 

 * Figures and Descriptions of the Palajozoic Fossils of Cornwall, etc., 1841, p. vi. 



