ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXV 



strators. Von Buch was a sower. He went about the world cast- 

 ing the seeds of new researches and fresh ideas, wherever his pro- 

 phetic spirit perceived a soil adapted for their germination. The 

 world of science has gathered a rich harvest through his foresight. 

 He is the only geologist who has attained an equal fame in the phy- 

 sical, the descriptive, and the natural history departments of his 

 science. In all three he has been an originator and a discoverer. 

 In every subdivision of all three he has been a suggester — a high 

 merit in itself. 



Von Buch never married. Personally he had his peculiarities 

 and eccentricities, odd ways of his own that amused the stranger 

 and endeared him to his many friends. Probably no geologist had 

 ever so general an acquaintance. He went everywhere to take the 

 measure of the workers in his favourite science, and knew them, 

 bodily and mentally, almost all. I shall ever esteem it a good 

 fortune to have seen him, to have received a lesson from him, 

 and to have deserved his published commendation. Though gone 

 from among us, his ubiquitous spirit is with us, and in the 

 Report which I shall have to give of geological progress during 

 the past year, I could point out the influence of his ideas at almost 

 every step. 



A short half year has passed away since among the most active 

 and vigorous of our younger members, Hugh Edwin Strickland 

 took a prominent part in our meetings and discussions. Healthy, 

 earnest, and indefatigable, his life promised to be one of long ser- 

 vices to natural science. In the best period of manhood, when ex- 

 perience and energy meet and work together, when well-sustained 

 exertions in the cause of truth, and the proofs of an equal capacity 

 for scientific learning and original research have raised our expecta- 

 tions and cherished our hopes, Mr. Strickland was taken from amongst 

 us awfully and immediately, falling literally a martyr to geological 

 science. He had been engaging, with his customary zeal, in the 

 discussions of the Meeting of the British Association at Hull, when 

 at the termination of the sittings he proceeded to the neighbourhood 

 of East Retford, to examine the cuttings on the line of railway at the 

 mouth of the Clanborough Tunnel. Intent upon his observations, 

 note-book in hand, unhappily unaware of the danger of his position, 

 he stepped from one line to another to avoid an approaching coal- 

 train, just at the moment that the Great Northern passenger-train 

 was issuing from the tunnel. Instantaneous death terminated his 

 earthly career. 



Mr. Strickland was in the forty-second year of his age. He was 

 a native of Righton in Yorkshire, and inherited scientific tastes from 

 his father, Mr. H. E. Strickland of Apperley, and his maternal 

 grandfather, the eminent Dr. Edmund Cartwright. Part of his 

 education was conducted by the late Dr. Arnold, who took a warm 

 interest in the talents of his distinguished pupil. His training was 

 completed at Oxford, where he studied at Oriel College, and where 

 doubtless, under the lectures of Dr. Buckland, he acquired and ripened 



