ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xlv 



and light over the discussion of any subject he took in hand ; and, 

 whether describing with his pen or with his tongue the ancient in- 

 habitants of the earth, such was the vivid reahty of tlie picture that 

 he drew, that they appeared to act and almost speak before us ; so 

 that I may fairly designate him the iEsop of extinct animals. Alas ! 

 himself now extinct ; how can we hope to see again in all its fulness 

 a second Buckland ? 



The great philosopher, whose labours we have endeavoured how- 

 ever feebly to notice, lived to complete his task and enjoy all the 

 honours which were so justly his due ; but now we must turn to an- 

 other, who, taking up the subject of geology at a more advanced stage 

 of its history, was apparently destined to carry it much nearer to- 

 wards ultimate perfection, when a fatal accident removed him from 

 amongst us only a short time after the unanimous vote of the Geolo- 

 gical Society had placed him at its head as President. The gloom 

 which was thus suddenly cast over us will never be forgotten, as every 

 one had anticipated a most glorious scientific career for Daniel 

 Sharpe. 



Daniel Sharpe was born in Nottingham Place, Marylebone, in 

 1806. 



His mother was a sister of Samuel Rogers, the poet. He was the 

 youngest of a large family, and his father and mother both died a few 

 months after his birth. He and the rest of the family were taken 

 charge of by an elder half-sister, who brought them up at Stoke 

 Newington, thus illustrating the inestimable blessing which a good 

 and wise sister is ever felt to be to a young bereaved family. 



After being a couple of years at a school in Newington, he went, 

 at the age of twelve, to the school of Mr. Cogan, in Walthamstow, 

 where he obtained a good knowledge of the classics. At sixteen he 

 left school and went into the counting-house of a Portuguese mer- 

 chant in London. He remained as a clerk there till the age of twenty- 

 four, when he removed for a year to Portugal, and on his return 

 joined an elder brother, Henry, who was already established as a 

 merchant in London. 



As a boy he always exhibited a fondness for natural history, but 

 did not pay any particular attention to geology, until he joined the 

 Geological Society in 1827, being then about twenty-one years of age. 

 His first active labour in geology was bringing up, in 1828, from 

 Somersetshire, a slab of stone at which he worked for many months, 

 at length revealing to view an Ichthyosaurus, a description of which 

 he afterwards published. 



In 1835 he went to Portugal on business, and remained there till 

 1838. While there he made the Geological Observations on the 

 neighbourhood of Lisbon, which he read to the Society in 1839. He 

 was afterwards frequently called by business to Portugal for a few 

 months at a time, and each time brought back the results of further 

 observations. 



Besides natural history, he was also very fond of philological 

 studies, and gave great attention to the discoveries of Major Rawlin- 



