624 



Address to the Geological Society, delivered at the Anniversary, on 

 the \Qth of February, 1838, by the Rev. William Whewell, 

 M.A. F.R.S. President of the Society. 



Gentlemen, 

 You have heard in the Reports just read, statements which show 

 that the Society is in a state of healthy progress both in respect to 

 its numbers and its funds. The total number of Fellows of the So- 

 ciety, exclusive of Honorary and Foreign Members, at the close of 

 the year 1836, was 709. At the close of the last year it was 738, 

 the increase being 29, after deducting 18 Members deceased or re- 

 signed. 



A Part of the Transactions has recently been published, which is 

 worthy of its predecessors in the interest of its matter, and which is 

 not inferior to them in its appearance and illustrations. I believe it 

 will be found that improvements have been introduced, especially in 

 the colouring of the maps. 



Our collections have also gone on increasing, and have, as in pre- 

 vious years, derived great additional value from the labour and know- 

 ledge bestowed upon them by our excellent Curator. But your 

 Council has found itself compelled to attend to the great, and I may 

 say intolerable amount of labour which has fallen upon Mr. Lonsdale, 

 and certain alterations in the Society's arrangements, directed to the 

 object of remedying this evil, are now in progress or in contemplation. 

 When they are completed I shall have the satisfaction of announcing 

 them to the Society. 



The Council have awarded the Wollaston Medal, as you have al- 

 ready been informed, to Mr. Richard Owen, for his general services 

 to Fossil Zoology, and especially for his labours employed upon the 

 fossil mammalia collected by Mr. Darwin in the voyage of Captain 

 Fitz Roy. I need not remind you, Gentlemen, how close are the ties 

 which connect the study of living and of fossil animals ; how much 

 light the progress of comparative anatomy throws upon the inter- 

 pretation of geological characters ; and what important steps in our 

 knowledge of the past condition of the earth are restorations of the 

 animal forms which peopled its surface in former times, but have 

 long vanished away. Since the immortal Cuvier breathed into our 



