57 



time considerations, entirely foreign to science, had exasperated into 

 unusual violence : and if, fortunately, there is no longer any trace of 

 this asperity, the change must, in a great degree, be ascribed to the 

 tone of Mr. Playfair's writings, enforced by the manly and consistent 

 tenour of his blameless life. 



I cannot, for your sake, regret that the presence of some of those 

 who have had a large share in the foundation of this Institution, pro- 

 hibits my alluding to their continued and unremitting efforts in sup- 

 port of it. — And the same cause prevents my dwelling on the effects 

 produced, at both our Universities, by the geological instructions de- 

 livered there ; which have given to the subject an impulse perhaps 

 without example in the history of those institutions, and gone far to 

 render natural science a permanent department of general education. 



But there is one of our number, whom professional and domestic 

 occupations retain so much in a remote quarter of the country, that 

 we have seldom the gratification of his presence amongst us, though 

 his writings are in all our hands : and it is a duty, — not to Mr. Cony- 

 beare, but to the subject, and to ourselves, — to say, that among the 

 more recent causes which have accelerated the progress of Geology in 

 England, the publication of the " Outlines of England and Wales," 

 by him and Mr. Phillips, has had an effect, to which nothing since 

 the institution of this Society, and the diffusion of the geological maps 

 of England, can be compared. It is with peculiar pleasure that this 

 statement can be made in this place ; since a large proportion of that 

 work has been derived from our own Transactions, and the authors 

 have long been distinguished members of our Society. Of course 

 their publication is not free from defects and inequalities, — inseparable 

 perhaps from a first edition, composed for the greater part during its 

 progress through the press: — but, regarding it as the first general 

 sketch of a country so complex as our own, it may be said without 

 fear of contradiction, that no equal portion of the earth's surface has 

 ever been more ably illustrated; — nor any geological work produced, 

 which bears more strongly impressed upon it the stamp of original 

 talent for natural science. 



The object, however, of our Institution, to adopt the language of 

 the charter, is " to investigate the mineral structure of the Earth;" — 

 not to confine ourselves to the British Islands only, (and even they 

 are best illustrated by comparison,) but to extend our researches if 

 possible, to every part of the globe ; — to record the geological phe- 

 nomena of the most distant countries, as well as of our own, — and from 

 the whole, derive the laws that have regulated the structure of this 



