114 



character of the signature too evidently testified the declining state 

 of the writer; and in a few days afterwards*, not our Society, nor 

 England only, but the whole scientific world had to lament his 

 death. 



In this place, and in the presence of so many to whom he was 

 personally known, I could not trust myself to speak of Dr. Wollas- 

 ton, so soon after the melancholy event which has deprived us of 

 him, in the tone that might be suitable to a public meeting. And yet, 

 if there ever was a man, in the estimate of whose character the 

 feelings of private attachment might be allowed to mix themselves 

 with scientific approbation, it was he: his personal and his intel- 

 lectual qualities were so consistent ; both flowing obviously from the 

 same independence of spirit and strict love of truth; and both 

 exhibiting, on all occasions, such admirable simplicity and good 

 taste. 



The greater number of Dr. Wollaston's productions belong to 

 departments of inquiry which do not come within the object of 

 our present consideration, and are recorded in the Transac- 

 tions of that distinguished body, of which for many years he was 

 one of the chief ornaments. His private life and character will 

 be the subject of a Memoir, by a gentleman who was honoured 

 with his intimate friendship. Our own Transactions cannot boast 

 of any of his Papers; but he was well acquainted with the 

 scope of our inquiries, and for several years before his death, 

 he always attended to the geological phenomena of the countries 

 which he visited in his excursions. He became a member of 

 our Society in 1812; was frequently upon our Council, and for 

 some time one of our Vice-Presidents ; and the interest which 

 he took in our welfare to the last, is fully testified by his recent 

 liberal donation, and by the suggestions with which it was accom- 

 panied. 



Indirectly, however, the labours and example of Dr. Wollaston, 

 as a discoverer and a cultivator of chemical and mineralogical 

 knowledge, have contributed in a most important degree to the 

 recent progress of Geology. His application of Chemistry to the 

 examination of very minute quantities, aided only by instruments 

 so simple as scarcely to deserve the name of apparatus, by divest- 

 ing chemical inquiry of much of its practical difficulty, has contri- 

 buted materially to the progress of the more correct Mineral- 

 ogy of our time : and the discovery of two new metals, with 

 great and various additions to our acquaintance with the pro- 

 perties and uses of those already known, formed but a small portion 

 of his chemical labours. His Camera Lucida is an instru- 

 ment of universal application : but to the Geologist it is an ac- 

 quisition of peculiar value, enabling those who are unskilled in 

 drawing to preserve the remembrance of what they see, and 

 giving an accuracy to sketches scarcely attainable by other 



* Dr. Wollaston died on the 22nd of December 1828. He was born on 

 the 6th of August 1766. 



