ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. IxXV 



made in Sicily and Italy, consisting of more than 6000 specimens 

 of recent and fossil species, as well as of minerals, and the series of 

 his collections connected with his researches in the Vienna basin, the 

 shore of France, &c. ; and he was ever most liberal in the application 

 of his private fortune to the purposes of science. 



Of the other members who have been removed by death from 

 amongst us, I can only speak in terms of general respect, as, in their 

 cases, I have not been able to collect the materials for even a brief 

 record of a practically useful hfe. Of the Rev. Mr. Image, however, 

 I may say that he was a zealous collector, who at all times was willing 

 and desirous that his collection should be studied and made use of by 

 men of science. 



There is one other name which, in addressing the Geological 

 Society, I feel bound by feeling and by duty to mention, though it is 

 not that of a Fellow of the Society, — I mean the name of Hugh 

 Miller. It will be remembered that at a time when a strong interest 

 in the study of Fossil Ichthyology had been aroused in this country 

 by Agassiz, a hardy son of labour discovered in the quarries of his 

 native Scotland the relics of many an inhabitant of its ancient seas ; 

 and, possessing the keen intellect and the well-tutored mind charac- 

 teristic of so many of his countrymen, he not only discovered, but 

 he described them, and gave to the world the ' Old Red Sandstone.' 

 This, though not the first literary product of his pen, was a work, 

 like White's ' Selborne,' combining accuracy of information with a 

 charming simplicity of style which suited all tastes, and commanded 

 the approbation of the most general as well as the most scientific 

 readers. From that moment to the day of his death, Hugh Miller 

 was considered a geological brother by the most eminent cultivators 

 of the science. In his subsequent work, ' Foot-Prints of the Creator,' 

 Mr. Miller gives much interesting and valuable matter in reference to 

 the discovery, history, and true position amongst Fishes, of the Aste- 

 rolepis of Stromness, and describes with considerable ability the seg- 

 ments, and their analogues, of the cranial region. The far greater 

 portion of the work is, however, devoted to a reply to the rea- 

 sonings of the author of 'Vestiges of the Creation,' and to the 

 somewhat mystical writings of Oken ; and it was doubtless on that 

 account that the name of the work was suggested to him by a 

 reverend friend ; though, alas ! how vain every attempt has hitherto 

 been, and ever will be, to discover the primaeval laws of creation. 

 It is' possible, as Miller has done, to demonstrate that the develop- 

 ment theory has been pushed too far, or that the embryonic theory 

 has been sometimes applied without judgement ; but we are still as 

 far as ever from any solution of the great problem of creation. The 

 posthumous work of Miller, called the ' Testimony of the Rocks,' 

 is also rich in valuable facts, but at the same time it is so deeply 

 controversial as to become even polemical. Would that he could 

 have calmed his anxious spirit, and allowed those, and they are few, 

 who are still determined to maintain that the wisdom of God shall 

 be made known to man only by one class of teaching to weary out 



