ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXVU 



father, who was a proctor in the ecclesiastical courts, died when the 

 son was but two years old, nor did his mother, who was the daughter 

 of Mr. Greenough, an eminent surgeon-apothecary, long survive her 

 husband, leaving her only son to the care of his grandfather, an 

 accomplished classical scholar. To his care and instruction Mr. 

 Greenough was wont in after years to attribute much of his success 

 in life, and that taste for laborious study which he began to manifest 

 at a very early period. He was sent to school at an early age, and 

 when nine years old went to Eton. His grandfather died while 

 George Bellas was still at school, leaving him a considerable fortune, 

 under the guardianship of Mr. Hunt, and desiring him to add to his 

 paternal name that of Greenough. 



In 1795 he entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, and resided 

 there for nine terms consecutively, but he never took his degree, and 

 in 1811 he removed his name from the college books. In 1798 he 

 proceeded to Gottiugen for the purpose of prosecuting his legal 

 studies. Here, however, it would appear that the study of natural 

 science, under the celebrated Blumenbach, had more attractions for 

 his inquiring mind than the Pandects and Institutes of Justinian. 

 Having been advised to attend the lectures of this distinguished 

 naturalist, to the attractions of which I can myself bear witness, he 

 determined to abandon the law and to devote himself thenceforth 

 to the pursuit of natural history and its cognate sciences. An inter- 

 leaved copy of Blumenbach' s * Institutiones Physiologicse' contains 

 copious notes by Mr. Greenough, showing with what zeal and in- 

 dustry he followed his instructor's lectures. He afterwards studied 

 mineralogy at Freiberg under Werner, and adopted his views on 

 geology, which he continued to hold for many years. From thence 

 he visited the Hartz Mountains and other mining districts of Ger- 

 many, and, after spending some time in Germany, Italy, and Sicily, 

 he returned to England in 1801, when he visited Cornwall and the 

 Scilly Islands. 



From that time until 1807 he was actively employed as a Member 

 of the Boyal Institution, attending lectures on chemistry, working in 

 the laboratory, and with Cheuevix, "Wollaston, Davy, Babington, and 

 others, endeavouring to promote the progress of science in all its 

 branches. In 1 806 he visited Ireland in company with Mr. R. Hutton, 

 and although principally occupied with geological investigations, he 

 took a deep interest in the political state of that country, and in 

 making himself acquainted with those important social questions 

 which were then agitating men's minds. In 1807 he was returned 

 to parliament for the borough of Gatton, for which he continued 

 to sit until the dissolution in 1812. But the pursuits of science 

 were more congenial to his tastes than politics, and in the very year 

 when he was first returned to Parliament we find him actively en- 

 gaged in promoting the study of geology. In that year he succeeded 

 in associating with himself several active and able advocates of the 

 then infant science, the result of which was a proposal to found a 

 new society for the furtherance of geological and mineralogical 

 science. A printed list of geological queries was issued, and 



