386 



chemical change, without which the recondite parts of the science 

 might have remained in utter darkness ? 



Surely every contributor to our Transactions will acknowledge with 

 gratitude the aid he may have received from several of our most 

 gifted members, who, unambitious of personal fame, have been 

 contented with the delightful consciousness of being sure, though 

 silent instruments, in urging on the advance of truth ; — and were I to 

 single out one individual specially characterized by this high quality, 

 I should name your first President, Mr. Greenough, who by the de- 

 votion of the best years of his life to our science, and by an unbounded 

 liberality in throwing open to every student the vast accumulations of 

 his knowledge in geological geography, has produced results of which 

 no one can form an estimate who is not acquainted with the interior 

 workings of our Society from its earliest beginnings. It is this kindly 

 principle of co-operation, the true latent heat of the Geological So- 

 ciety, so ready to manifest itself on every occasion fitted to call it 

 forth, which, warming and vivifying our endeavours, gives us our 

 consistency and our strength, and enabling us to grapple with our 

 hundred-headed science, constitutes the main -spring of our pros- 

 perity. 



Permit me, Gentlemen, in concluding this address, to offer you my 

 heartfelt wishes for the continuance of your triumphant career, and 

 to assure you that I consider myself truly ennobled in having been 

 placed, for a time, at the head of a brotherhood united for purposes 

 so great, and knit together by such lofty and enduring sympathies. 



