PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 

 Vol. II. 1838. No. 55. 



AT THE 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 

 l&th February, 1838, 



The following Report from the Council was read : — 



The Council has on this, as on many preceding Anniversaries, to 

 congratulate the Society on the steady augmentation of its numbers 

 a circumstance gratifying, not only because it adds to the efficiency 

 of the body, but because it evinces on the partof the public a grow* 

 ing attachment to Geological Science. During the year 1837 the 

 number of FeUows, with the Honorary and Foreign Members, has 

 risen from 810 to 837, 47 Fellows having been elected during that 

 period, and the deaths and resignations having amounted to 20. 



The business to be transacted by the Society having grown with 

 its growth, it has become necessary to review, and in some instances 

 to remodel, the salaried department. It has appeared desirable to 

 the Council that the laborious and difficult duty of arranging and 

 cataloguing the collections should devolve upon an officer whose 

 time should be given to that single object ; but the qualifications re- 

 quired in such an officer are so many and so rare, that though nume- 

 rous candidates have presented themselves, no one has yet been ap- 

 pointed. 



The reforms which the Council contemplate in the salaried de- 

 partment will, it is hoped, when complete, add to its efficiency with- 

 out any material augmentation of expense. In compliance with a 

 Bye-Law of the Society it is the duty of the Council to state that 

 Richard Beauchamp and his wife have been appointed to the situ- 

 ations of porter and housekeeper, instead of Robert Carrier, deceased. 



The Council have great pleasure in observing the state of the 

 finances, of which a detailed statement is appended to this Report. 



The estimates of the past year have so far exceeded the expendi- 

 ture as to warrant the expectation that the reduced estimate now 

 given in will be sufficient to meet the expenditure of the present 



3 D 



