anniversary address of the president. 149 



Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 



The establishment of our Quarterly Journal has unquestionably 

 been the great feature in the past year. In the earlier days of the 

 Society, and for a period of twenty years, our ' Transactions ' were 

 the only vehicle by which the papers read before us were commu- 

 nicated to the public. These, by their form and the nature of the 

 illustrations, bore so heavily upon our finances, that a volume, or 

 even a part of a volume, could be published only at distant inter- 

 vals. To remedy, in some degree, the great evil of delay, the 

 Proceedings were instituted in 1827 ; and they form a valuable re- 

 cord of the history of the Society, and of the progress of Geology 

 for the last eighteen years. But in order to avoid an inconvenient 

 and even injurious effect upon the sale of our Transactions, the Pro- 

 ceedings consisted of very brief abstracts of the papers, and being 

 without illustrations, in many instances they conveyed a very im- 

 perfect idea of the nature and value of the memoir. But the great 

 delay in the publication of memoirs in full, robbing authors in some 

 instances of the honour of priority in discovery, the uncertainty 

 when a paper that had been read would be published, and even the 

 doubt that was sometimes raised whether it would ever appear, very 

 materially diminished the usefulness of the Society, and, there is too 

 much reason to believe, cooled the zeal of many of our Members, 

 and forced them to send their memoirs elsewhere. In a progressive 

 science like Geology, with so many active cultivators of it in every 

 part of the world, rapidity of publication is of the first importance, 

 that geologists may speedily know what has been done and is doing 

 by others; thus affording information for their guidance, not only 

 as to what their attention should be directed, but to save them from 

 throwing away time and labour on what had been already done. 

 A majority of papers may be perfectly well given in the octavo form, 

 now that the great improvements of late years make it possible to 

 have distinct and accurate illustrations by woodcuts, lithographs, and 

 zincographs, upon a page of that size. By the adoption of a Journal 

 appearing at regular periods and at short intervals, rapidity of pub- 

 lication is secured, and with the exception of papers requiring il- 

 lustrations that can only be adequately given in a larger form, 

 memoirs will in general appear within six months of their having 

 been read at the meetings, and sometimes even more speedily. 



But the institution of the Journal has enabled the Council to ex- 

 tend the usefulness of the Society by the addition of what is called 

 the " Miscellaneous Part." The diffusion of the Society's publica- 

 tions must always be mainly among our own countrymen, among 

 those interested in geological inquiries at home and in our colonies, 

 and among our transatlantic brethren, speaking the same language 

 as ourselves. Geology now embraces so wide a sphere of inquiry 

 and is so actively cultivated in almost every part of the civilized 

 world, that each year gives birth to works of the highest interest, 

 greater in number than the most diligent can overtake, even among 

 those whose whole time is devoted to the science, unless they con- 



