ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xli 



Professor F. W. Johnston was born at Paisley in 1/96. When 

 he entered the University of Glasgow, he supported himself for some 

 time by private tuition, having learnt thus early to maintain himself 

 by those talents for which he was afterwards conspicuous. Having 

 at a subsequent period resolved to gratify his taste for chemistry, he 

 proceeded to Sweden for the purpose of pursuing his favourite studies 

 under the able teaching of Berzelius. When the Durham University 

 was founded in 1833, Mr. Johnston was appointed Reader in Che- 

 mistry and Mineralogy, an appointment which he retained until the 

 period of his decease. In 1 843 he was elected Chemist to the Agri- 

 cultural Society of Scotland. 



Most of his literary productions relate to the chemistry of agricul- 

 ture. Amongst the most important are his lectures on Agricultural 

 Chemistry and Geology, and the Catechism on the same science. But 

 his last work was the most attractive. The ' Chemistry of Common 

 Life ' will be a standard work on the subjects it treats of. He was 

 a great traveller, and his notes on North America are well deserving 

 of notice. In his application of chemistry to geology, he was pecu- 

 liarly fortunate, and those geologists who attended the Meeting of 

 the British Association in Glasgow in 1842, must remember with 

 delight the lucid and engaging manner in which he described the 

 chemical change which the vegetable matter had gradually undergone 

 during the successive processes of transmutation, from the youngest 

 turf and brown coal, through various stages, down to the anthracitic 

 coal of the earliest beds. 



He died at Durham on the 18th of September 1855, of a rapid 

 decline, from a neglected cold after his return from the Continent. 



I regret that amongst the many Associates whom we have lost, I 

 can only mention the names of such distinguished men as Mr. J. H. 

 Vivian, Sir T. Frankland Lewis, Lord de Mauley, Mr. W. D. SauU, 

 Mr. E. W. Pendarves, Mr. J. Davis Gilbert, Mr. Pusey, and Mr. G. 

 Stephenson, many of whom were frequent attendants in these rooms ; 

 and, although not all active geologists themselves, they were fully 

 capable of appreciating the merits of our science, and took a lively 

 interest in the welfare of our Society. 



Amongst our foreign Associates we have to regret the loss of M. 

 Jean de Charpentier, Director of the Salt-works of Bex. He 

 was born at Freiberg in Saxony in 1787. His father was Director- 

 General of the Mines of Saxony, and his brother, Toussaint de Char- 

 pentier, died three years ago. Director of Mines in Prussia. From 

 an early age he appears to have devoted his energies to the same 

 pursuits, and became a Member of the Council of Mines in Silesia. 

 He subsequently became Director of the Copper Mines of Baygorry, 

 in the Pyrenees, and in 1813, when only 26 years of agfe, was 

 appointed Director of the Salt-works of Bex. In this year he pub- 

 lished his first work in the French 'Journal des Mines,' entitled 

 "Memoire sur le Terrain Granitique des Pyrenees." In this work, 

 remarkable for its clear and methodical style, M. de Charpentier de- 



