ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 11 



Natural History. The geologist will find in it a rich store of facts 

 of the highest interest, and for the inquirer into glacial phsenomena 

 it abounds with new and invaluable data. I may say the same for the 

 geographical memoir of Capt. Richard Strachey on Western Thibet ; 

 and we all look forward anxiously to the publication of the detailed 

 account, now m progress, of his geological researches, knowing as we 

 do, how rich a store of new and important facts was accumulated 

 during his adventurous journeys. 



It is most gratifying to think that at the present moment no small 

 proportion of our foreign possessions is being surveyed geologically 

 by able and trained observers, and that the vague and often incom- 

 prehensible statements of self-satisfied and shrewd though ignorant 

 miners and unqualified travellers, are fast being supplanted by the 

 results of careful and accurate research. In Canada Mr. Logan pur- 

 sues his great work, with able assistants, as zealously and successfully 

 as during former years. In Eastern India Mr. Oldham is similarly 

 engaged, and has gathered around him several young geologists of 

 promise, trained in the methods of European research. In the pro- 

 vinces of Australia, mineral exploration is not abandoned to mere gold- 

 seekers, and the government reports are now scientific documents. 

 Mr. Stutchbury and Mr. Clark are at work in New South Wales, 

 and Mr. Selwyn has undertaken the exploration of Victoria, with 

 the adrantage of having previously passed through a strict geological 

 discipline in the survey of North Wales. In our colony of the Cape 

 of Good Hope a geological survey is being regularly conducted by 

 Mr. Geddes Bain, whose private researches had previously produced 

 remarkable discoveries ; and in that of Natal, a similar official ex- 

 ploration is, 1 believe, about to be conducted by the Surveyor-general, 

 Dr. Stanger, whose perfect qualifications for the office are well-known 

 to many Members of our Society. 



Progress of Geology abroad. 



Of late years the literature of our science has annually received so 

 enormous an increase, that to keep pace with the progress of the 

 details of local geological research is a labour almost beyond the 

 ability of a single individual. In every civilized country the number 

 of pursuers of geology is rapidly multiplying, and the transactions 

 of foreign societies have become prolific in memoirs treating on all 

 departments of our science. France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Italy, 

 and Scandinavia have all, during the past year, contributed largely 

 through their geological and other societies as well as by separate 

 treatises. In the New World a like manifestation of scientific acti- 

 vity is exhibited, so it would be presumptuous to pretend to report, in 

 an address of reasonable dimensions, the particulars of geological 

 progress abroad during 1853. I shall therefore confine myself almost 

 entirely to the noticing of a few pajiers and works upon foreign 

 geology that bear more or less directly upon questions of peculiar 

 interest to workers at home. One of the most important, the great 

 work of Barrande, I have already noticed at some length. The date 



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