﻿xlviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [vol. lxxii, 



THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, 

 Arthur Smith Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S. 



Among those whom we have lost by death during the past year 

 are two distinguished Foreign Members, Count Solms-Laubach 

 .and Dr. C. R. Zeiller, who devoted themselves to Paleobotany. 

 For obituary notices of them I am indebted to Prof. A. C. Seward. 

 There are also two Foreign Correspondents, and several Fellows 

 who have done great service to Geology, 



Hermann Graf zu Solms-Laubach died on November 24th, 

 1915, in his seventy-third year. He was elected a Foreign Member 

 •of the Linnean Society in 1887, of the Royal Society in 1902, and 

 of the Geological Society in 1906 ; in 1911 the Gold Medal of 

 the Linnean Society was awarded to him, and with other foreign 

 visitors he received an Honorary Degree at Cambridge on the occa- 

 sion of the Darwin Celebration in 1909. Solms-Laiibach belonged 

 to ' one of the most ancient German families, who were sovereigns 

 in their own right down to the year 1806' ('Nature,' January 

 13th, 1916). He occupied the Chair of Botany at Gottingen, 

 .and succeeded the eminent botanist de Bary as Professor in the 

 University of Strassburg. Though well known as the author of 

 many important papers on recent plants, it is the distinguished part 

 that he took in the reformation and revival of palaeobotanical 

 research which more particularly appeals to geologists. When he 

 began to write his ' Einleitung in die Palaontologie,' he found it 

 necessary to study the unrivalled collection of sections in the 

 possession of Prof. W. Crawford Williamson, and for this purpose 

 paid several visits to Manchester, which, as he says in a sym- 

 pathetic biographical sketch of his friend published in ' Nature,' 

 September 5th, 1895, knitted closer the bonds of reverence and 

 friendship between himself and his English colleague. The 

 publication of Solms-Laubach's book in 1887 led to a greater 

 appreciation of the value of Williamson's work, and his critical 

 treatment of the widely- scattered literature enabled botanists to 

 obtain a general view in truer perspective than had previously 

 been possible of the significance of palspobotanical records. In 

 the preface he wrote : — 1 Botany, which in former times generally 

 treated Palseophytology in a very stepmotherly manner, now 



