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tinue to promote the researches for which we are associated ; and 

 to render as useful as possible, to those who are engaged in the 

 study of Geology, the various sources of information afforded by 

 the collections and papers, which the liberality of your members and 

 other contributors has entrusted to your charge. The Council 

 has this day informed you of the measures which it considers eligi- 

 ble for these purposes; and I need not remind the Fellows, that 

 the prosperity resulting from the exertions of our predecessors can 

 be upheld only by the continued activity of those who have leisure 

 to assist, periodically, in the current business of our institution. 



Among the members whom we have lost during the past year, 

 we have had to regret the death of Mr. William Phillips, who had 

 been for several years distinguished by his acquirements and pub- 

 lications on Mineralogy and Geology ; and whose name stands 

 very creditably prominent in the list of persons, fortunately nu- 

 merous in England, who, though constantly occupied in commerce, 

 increase their own happiness, and promote useful knowledge, by 

 the application of their hours of leisure to the pursuit of Natural 

 Science. 



Mr. Phillips was the author of several Papers in our Transactions, 

 all of them containing proofs of the zeal and effect with which he 

 pursued his inquiries. It was after the invention of Dr. Wollaston's 

 reflective Goniometer, that his assiduity and success in the use of 

 that beautiful instrument enabled him to produce his most valuable 

 Crystallographic Memoirs ; and the third edition of his elaborate 

 work on Mineralogy* contains perhaps the most remarkable results 

 ever yet produced in Crystallography, from the application of mere 

 goniometric measurement, without the aid of mathematics. In our 

 fifth volume Mr. Phillips has compared some of the strata near 

 Dover with those of the opposite coast of France ; and has proved, 

 that the cliffs on the two sides of the English Channel, though evi- 

 dently portions of strata once continuous, must always have been 

 separated by a considerable space. He was the author likewise of 

 several detached works, which have materially promoted the study 

 of Mineralogy and Geology. But the service for which he principally 

 claims the gratitude of English Geologists, is his having been the 

 proposer of the Geological " Outlines of England and Wales;" in 

 which his name is joined with that of the Rev. William Conybeare ; 

 — a book too well known to require any new commendation, and to 

 the completion of which we all look forward with increasing interest 

 and expectation. 



You have heard, in the Annual Report, the document by which 

 Dr. Wollaston acquainted the Society with a donation intended 

 for the advancement of Geological research. This Paper was 

 dated on the 8th of December last : the tremulous and uncertain 



* " An Elementary Introduction to Mineralogy, &c. 3rd edition, enlarged, 

 with numerous Wood-cuts of Crystals." — London, 1823. 



