362 



Address to the Geological Society, delivered on the Evenitig of the \7th 

 of February 1832, by the President Roderick Impey Murchison, 

 Esq. ER,S. L.S. $c. 



Gentlemen, 



From the Reports which have just been read, it appears that, 

 nourishing as our condition may have been under my distinguished 

 predecessors, this Society is moving onwards in a course of con- 

 tinued and increasing prosperity. 



Our list of Fellows has been augmented by thirty-five new names : 

 and our foreign list has been honoured by the accession of Von Hoff 

 and Mitscherlich j the first of whom has much enlarged our know- 

 ledge of the causes in operation upon the surface of the earth ; the 

 latter is known to you by his great discoveries in analytical mine- 

 ralogy. 



We have to regret the loss of only two English members of our 

 body. In our foreign associate, the venerable Sommering, death has 

 indeed deprived us of a most invaluable coadjutor ; but he has fallen 

 ripe in years and loaded with honours*. 



Our collections and library have received most important additions ; 

 and these, together with the whole of our properly, have been incal- 

 culably increased in value by the lucid arrangements and unabated 

 zeal of our curator. 



The Council have attentively considered the most befitting appro- 

 priation of the proceeds of the Wollaston Fund for the present year; 

 and in their wish to comply with the spirit of the bequest of the illus- 

 trious testator, who has charged them " not to hoard these dividends 

 parsimoniously, but to expend them liberally, and, as nearly as may 

 be, annually," they have resolved to adjudge them on this occasion to 

 Mr. Lonsdale, to enable him during the ensuing summer to continue 

 his researches in the oolitic formations, and to detect the variations 

 of mineral and zoological character, which mark this series in its 

 range to the North of England. By this award of the Council, I 

 feel satisfied, that the science will derive much real benefit in con- 

 sequence of the closeness of geological observation, and accurate 

 knowledge of natural history, which are so happily combined in the 

 person of our curator. 



The earliest communication during the last session, on secondary 

 deposits, was from the pen of Mr. Poulett Scrope, who, although so 

 well known by many able writings on volcanic subjects, had not 

 previously directed much of his attention to the nature of sedimentary 

 formations ; and his accession, therefore, to the small number of 

 working contributors in this branch of inquiry, is to be hailed with 

 satisfaction. From the rippled and wavy markings upon the surfaces of 

 certain beds of the forest marble in Wiltshire, and from the apparent 



* We may rejoice that some of the most precious monuments of Som- 

 mering's skill in fossil comparative anatomy, have been happily secured to 

 the English student by the exertions of Mr. Konig, and are now exhibited 

 in the British Museum. 



