﻿ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXxi 



I am convinced that on no preceding occasion have these proceeds 

 been awarded to a person who by his researches more completely 

 realizes the design and object of the illustrious testator. 



Seeing that M. Daubree is continuously engaged in the prosecution 

 of that branch of experimental science which geologists most call 

 for, and knowing that he has already thrown great and important 

 light on some of the most occult processes of nature in the meta- 

 morphism of rocks, I may take the liberty of saying that I hope 

 the notice we now take of such labours may be but the prelude to 

 our speedy enrolment of this distinguished man among the Foreign 

 Members of the Geological Society. 



THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OE THE PRESIDENT. 



I congratulate you on the favourable position of the Society which 

 the report from your Council has presented to you. Although we 

 have to lament the deaths of many of our Eellows during the past 

 year, I have not to read to you such a melancholy list as you heard 

 from this chair at our last Anniversary, of the names of many of our 

 associates eminent in science taken away from us in a single year ; 

 for our sorrow has been aggravated by the decease of but a few of 

 those from whom future valuable contributions to the advancement 

 of our science might have been looked forward to with confidence. 



The Eev. Professor Baden Powell died last June, at the age of sixty- 

 three. He took first-class honours at Oxford in 1817, became a Fellow 

 of the Royal Society in 1824, and in 1827 was appointed Savilian 

 Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford, an office which 

 he retained to the time of his death. He was elected a Fellow of 

 this Society in 1837, and was a frequent attendant at our evening 

 meetings ; and, although chiefly known for his labours in physics, 

 and especially in Light and Heat, he contributed much, by a variety 

 of writings, to the general acceptance by the public of the results of 

 geological investigations. He had worked but little at field-geology; 

 but his unusual grasp of mind and habits of industry enabled him, 

 whilst closely engaged in other branches of science, to keep pace 

 with the recent observations and current literature of geology, 

 especially on the great general questions in our science the most 

 attractive to a philosophical mind. 



The fruits of these studies were embodied in numerous articles in 

 reviews, and in a series of works devoted, in great part, to inquiries 

 into the relations between physical science and religion. Such were, 

 ' The Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, 1838 ; ' < Essays 

 on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, &c.,' 1855 ; 1 The Unity 

 of Worlds and of Nature,' 1856 ; ' The Order of Nature," 1859. 

 In the latter work there is a most interesting sketch of the progress 

 of geology, from which I am tempted to quote the following ad- 

 mirable passage : — " The evidence of the true influence and progress 

 of philosophical principles in this grand department of science — 

 grand in itself, but more transcendently bo in relation to the 



