1XXX PROCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. May 1904^ 



Shales of the district. Lastly, at Harrismith he devoted much time 

 to collecting specimens from and comparing the strata of the neigh- 

 bouring hills ; but his notes have not been published. 1 



Walter Drawbridge Crick was born at Hanslope on December 

 15th, 1857. Beginning life as a clerk in the Goods Department 

 of the London & North- Western Railway Company, he afterwards 

 became a traveller for a firm of shoe-manufacturers in Northampton 

 — an occupation which brought him into intimate acquaintance 

 with much of the North of England, and of Scotland and Ireland. 

 At last, in 1880, while still a young man, he started in business 

 with two partners as a firm of boot-and-shoe manufacturers in the 

 same town, and continued to increase in prosperity until, in the 

 end, the enlarged business passed entirely into his own hands. 

 Early in life he had attended classes in chemistry and geology, and 

 became an enthusiastic field-naturalist and collector of fossils. 

 As his worldly means increased, he added other subjects of interest 

 to his collecting-list — such as first editions of standard English 

 literature, choice bindings, book-plates, coloured prints, stamps, 

 coins, English porcelain and furniture. But geology and conchology 

 continued to be his favourite recreations. He succeeded in gathering 

 together a valuable collection of specimens, and gave particular 

 attention to fossil gasteropoda and foraminifera. He took much 

 interest in the local institutions of Northampton, especially the 

 Natural History Society and the Eree Library. He joined the 

 Geologists' Association in 1886, and was elected into our Society 

 in 1892. Eor the last four years he had been aware that his 

 tenure of life was feeble : and at last, after only a few days* illness, 

 he succumbed to syncope resulting from an attack of angina 

 2)eetoris, on December 23rd, 1903, in the 47th year of his age. 



CONTINENTAL ELEVATION AND SUBSIDENCE. 



As it is customary at this Anniversary that the occupant of the 

 Presidential Chair should offer to the Society some observations on 

 the progress of Geolog3 T during the preceding year, or on some 

 special department of the science which seems to him worthy of 



1 This notice of Dr. Eston has been written by Prof, T. Rupert Jones. 

 F.R.S. 



