ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OP THE PRESIDENT. XXXi 



organic remains in the Boulder-clay of Scotland. He was also the 

 author of various other memoirs on geological, engineering, and 

 mining subjects, some of which were contributed to the ' Edinburgh 

 Encyclopaedia.' In 1810 he was elected an Honorary Member of 

 this Society, and spent his last years at Alloa, where he died, in 

 December 1861, in his eighty-sixth year. 



The Eev. James Cumming, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry, 

 Cambridge, was born in the parish of St. James's, Westminster, 

 October 23, 1777; and it is related by one from whom I quote, who 

 knew him well, that as a child in arms he happened to be present at 

 Lord George Gordon's riots. In 1797 he entered at Trinity College, 

 where he was elected Scholar in 1800, and graduated as Tenth 

 Wrangler in the following year. In 1803, he was elected a Fellow 

 of his College, and Professor of Chemistry in 1815 ; and in 1816 he 

 became a Fellow of the Koyal and Geological Societies of London. 

 He was a successful experimenter ; and it is said that about the year 

 1819, when he repeated Oersted's famous magnetic experiments, he 

 observed, " Here we have the principle of an electric telegraph." His 

 last course of lectures was interrupted by illness in the spring of 1860, 

 though he still continued to work in his laboratory. His chief work 

 was a * Manual of Electro-Dynamics ' (1827), and he contributed 

 various papers to the ' Cambridge Philosophical Transactions/ In 

 1 819, Professor Cumming was presented to the Rectory of North 

 Runcton, where he died, last y ear, in the eighty -fifth year of his age, 

 loved and admired by all who knew him for his genuine qualities 

 both of heart and head. 



John Collis Nesbit was born at Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1819. 

 When quite a boy, he attached himself to chemical pursuits, and at 

 an early age was placed under the guidance of the celebrated 

 Dr. Dalton in Manchester, where his family had gone to reside. 

 When of age, he removed to London, and established at Kennington 

 his School of Chemistry and Agriculture, and became well known for 

 his lectures on agricultural chemistry. In 1845 he was elected 

 Fellow of the Chemical and Geological Societies, and was the author 

 of several chemical treatises. In 1848 he gave a memoir to this 

 Society " On the Presence of Phosphoric Acid in the subordinate 

 members of the Chalk Formation," in which he showed that on the 

 Upper and Lower Greensand the use of artificial phosphatic manures 

 had not proved beneficial for agricultural purposes, for this reason, 

 that they themselves often contained a sufficiency of phosphoric acid. 

 Indeed, he specially devoted his attention to the application of 

 chemistry to geology, and in France he was instrumental in 

 indicating to the French Government the localities where fossil 

 manures could be profitably worked — a notice of which appeared in 

 the ' Comptes Bendus,' 1857. In the same year the agricultural 

 world recognized his labours by presenting him, through the Farmers' 

 Club, with a valuable microscope and a service of plate. He died 

 March 30, 1862, aged forty-three. 



