PEOCEEDINOS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



I beg you to convey my very sincere thanks to the Members of 

 the Council and to the Society at large for the kind support I uni- 

 formly experienced from them on all occasions. So long as life and 

 health may be left to me, I shall continue my devotion to geological 

 science, and my attachment to the Society which has done so much 

 to promote it. 



I am, my dear Sir Roderick, 



Faithfully yours, 



Leonard Horner. 



The Chairman then proceeded to read the following Obituary 

 Notice of Dr. Fitton. 



The record of the decease of Fellows of the Geological Society is 

 naturally commenced this year with a sketch of the life of one of 

 our most distinguished leaders. The late Dr. W. H. Fitton, who 

 was born in Dubhn in January 1780, and died in London on the 

 13th May, 1861, at the mature age of 81, was truly one of the 

 British worthies who have raised modern geology to its present 

 advanced position. 



Descended from an ancient family in Cheshire, whose tombstones 

 are still to be seen in the parish church of Gawsworth, Dr. Fitton's 

 ancestors had been long settled in Ireland. As a little boy, he fre- 

 quented the same school in Dublin as Thomas Moore, the poet, and 

 Eobert Emmett, the United Irishman ; and already in 1798, through 

 his proficiency in classics, he gained the Senior Scholarship of Trinity 

 College, which he held till 1803, whilst as early as 1799 he became 

 Bachelor of Arts in that University. Even in those troublous times, 

 as I am informed by his old friend, that distinguished linguist and 

 geographer, the Eev. G. Renouard, young Fitton began to collect 

 fossils, in doing which, having been unjustly suspected to be a rebel, 

 he was for a short time kept in military durance. 



From letters addressed to his learned friend, the Rev. J. Rogers, 

 of Mawnan, in Cornwall, we learn that he made visits to that 

 county to acquire a knowledge of its mineral structure ; and in one 

 of these letters, dated from Trinity College, Dubhn, in JN'ovember 

 1807, we find that he had then determined the heights of the 

 principal Irish mountains by barometrical admeasurement. In that 

 letter he also speaks of an associate who has since given to the world 

 the best geological map of Ireland — our eminent feUow-labourer the 

 present Sir Richard Griffith. 



Originally destined for the church, Mr. Fitton was soon attracted 

 to the medical career and the pursuits of physical science by entering 

 into the studies of the University of Edinburgh (1808-9), then so 

 justly celebrated for its great philosophical teachers. There it was 

 that ho formed intimacies with other students of medicine who after- 

 wards reached the summit of their profession. Attending the lectures 

 of Professor Jameson, he then made the acquaintance of the Rev. 

 Dr. John Fleming and other young men of science. There it was 

 also that he learnt to admire the writings as well as to imbibe the 



