ANNITEESABT ADDRESS. XXXI 



liberal sentiments of Sydney Smith, Jefl&.'ey, Brougham, and tlie 

 founders of that * Edinburgh Eeview ' to which in subsequent years 

 he himself became a distinguished contributor. Removing to London 

 in 1809 or 1810, he kept house with his mdowed mother and his 

 three sisters — studying medicine and chemistry assiduously, and 

 associating with all the rising men of science in that day, par- 

 ticularly with "VVollaston, Holland, Eoget, Chambers, Bright, and 

 others. 



In 1811 Dr. Fitton commenced to write on our science by commu- 

 nicating, through our respected President, Leonard Horner, to the 

 then young Geological Society a memoir " On the Geological Struc- 

 ture of the Vicinity of Dublia," which appears in the 1st volume 

 of our Transactions (Old Series). Again, in ' Nicholson's Journal ' 

 of 1813 we find one of his essays on the Geological System of Werner, 

 as doubtless derived from his Scottish studies in the days of Jameson, 

 Hall, Hutton, and Playfau- ; and in the following year he wrote upon 

 the Porcelain Rocks of Cornwall, which he had personally examined, 

 and also gave out his views on a new system of ventilating mines. 

 In 1812 he removed with his mother and sisters to Northampton, to 

 which place he was attracted chiefly through the patronage of the 

 then Earl and Countess Spencer, and in the hope of succeeding to 

 the practice of the venerable Dr. Kerr, the father of Lady Davy. 

 Practising for eight years as a physician at Northampton, it appears 

 that in 1816 he was admitted " ad eundem " M.D. of the University 

 of Cambridge. 



In 1817 Dr. Fitton began that series of articles in the 'Edinburgh 

 Re^'iew,' to which he contributed at intervals until the year 1841, 

 and which proved him to be a just and enlightened commentator 

 on the progress of geological science during the eventful thirty years 

 of which he treated. Thus, when we look back to his first article, 

 which analysed the * Transactions of the Geological Society ' since its 

 establishment in 1804 up to the publication of a new volume in 

 1817, or refer to his review in the following year of the first geolo- 

 gical map of England, and the other original efi'orts of "William 

 Smith, we at once see how happily he seized upon and illustrated 

 the prominent features in the foundations of our science, and the 

 establishment of that British nomenclature which has become so 

 generally current. Then again in 1823, when he indited his stirring 

 pages on Buckland's * Reliquiae Diluviana?,' or in 1839, when ho 

 reviewed the * Elementary Geology ' of LyeU, and put forth so much 

 knowledge respecting the Huttonian theory of the earth, or in 

 1841, when he reviewed the succession of pala30zoic periods, as 

 explained in the Silurian System of Murchison*, we see how vigor- 

 ously he watched over and rejoiced in the progress of all inquiries 

 which unfolded the history of bygone ages and enabled us to read 

 off the ancient legends of the former inhabitants of the earth, as 



* Dr. Fitton also contributed to the 'Edinburgli Ecvicw' two articles con- 

 nected with liis profession as a medical man, viz. " Report on Lunatic Asylums," 

 vol. xxviii., May 1817, and " Larrey'e Surgical Campaign," voL xxxi. No. 62, 

 March 1819. 



