XXXIV PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



science singularly neglected until a very recent period, and which 

 forms the link between geology and geography. Mr. Greenough 

 was one of the first to recognize the necessity of an accurate delinea- 

 tion of the physical features of a country before we can attempt to 

 lay down with any certainty the results of our geological investiga- 

 tions. It was in carrying out these views that he endeavoured to 

 give a more scientific character to the proceedings of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, and to enlist in its favour the suffrages of the 

 geologist and the mineralogist, as well as those of the politician and 

 the traveller. 



And since we no longer enjoy the benefit of his presence, let us 

 look with a higher degree of admiration and respect on that bust of 

 him by Westmacott which we possess in these rooms, and, while thus 

 contemplating the features of our first President and the Founder of 

 our Society, endeavour, in our scientific exertions, to emulate his 

 energy no less than that singleness of purpose, which was one of his 

 greatest characteristics. 



A short twelvemonth has scarcely passed away since I had occa- 

 sion to announce from this Chair the award of the Wollaston Palla- 

 dium Medal to the late Director- General of the Museum of Practical 

 Geology. It is now my duty to allude to him as one of our associates 

 whose loss we have to deplore. On that occasion I noticed some of 

 the passages in his scientific career which had established his claim to 

 the honour then conferred on him ; at the risk of repetition I must now 

 again allude to some of the same circumstances. 



Henry Thomas De la Beche was born in 1796. iVfter losing 

 his father at a very early age, he resided for several years with his 

 mother in Devonshire, then at Charmouth, and afterwards at Lyme 

 Regis, where the cliffs teeming with the remains of former life appear 

 to have first drawn his attention to those pursuits which he subse- 

 quently so successfully and zealously cultivated. We have thus 

 another instance of the influence of early associations in directing the 

 mind to those studies by which so many scientific men have after- 

 wards distinguished themselves. The southern shores of England 

 soon became classic ground for the geological student ; and, with 

 hammer and note-book in his hand, Henry De la Beche was one of the 

 first to unfold the mysteries of that portion of the primaeval history 

 of our globe which was written in such indelible characters on the 

 coasts of Dorsetshire and Devon. 



Following the profession of his father he entered the Military 

 School of Great Marlowe in 1810. Here he first exhibited those 

 powers of the pencil and that facility of sketching the physical 

 features of ground which so materially favoured his success in his 

 subsequent pursuits and occupations. But his military career was 

 short, and, notwithstanding the charms of society, to which he was 

 by no means insensible, his active and inquiring mind eagerly 

 sought for a more energetic and independent sphere of action than a 

 military career could then afford, when the general peace of Europe 

 condemned our armies to comparative inaction. 



