Yol. 54.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Ixix 



district already made famous by the observations of Miss Benett 

 and Dr. Fitton. 



'In May, 1839, Mr. Brodie read his first paper before the 

 Geological Society of London, entitled " A Notice on the Discovery 

 of the Eemains of Insects, and a new Genus of Isopodous Crustacea 

 belonging to the Family Cymothoidse, in the Wealden Formation in 

 the Vale of Wardour, Wilts " (Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. iii, p. 134). 

 The new isopod was determined by Owen, and subsequently 

 described by Milne-Edwards under the now familiar name of 

 Archceoniscus Brodiei. The strata, in one layer of which this fossil 

 occurs in profusion, have since been grouped with the Purbeck 

 Beds. 



* Mr. Brodie was admitted to priest's orders in 1839, and he stayed 

 barely 2 years in his Wiltshire parish. In 1840 he became curate 

 to the vicar of Steeple Claydon, in Buckinghamshire, and entered 

 a region of Oxford Clay and Drift in the vale of Bicester, and 

 a famous hunting country. Steeple Claydon is about 4 miles south 

 of Buckingham, where the Lower Oolites come to the surface ; but 

 Mr. Brodie's observations were directed to the country farther south, 

 where he found at Quainton Hill, and at Stone, near Aylesbury, 

 outliers of Portland and Purbeck beds possessing " a certain similarity 

 with those in Wiltshire, but with clearly marked local differences." 

 Staying but a few months at Steeple Claydon, his discovery of 

 remains of insects and other fossils in the " Wealden " (Purbeck) 

 strata of Buckinghamshire was published after he had left the 

 district (Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. iii, p. 780). 



' In 1841 Mr. Brodie was appointed rector of Down Hatherley 

 in the Yale of Gloucester, and about 5 miles west of Cheltenham. 

 Here he came into a richly fossiliferous region of Lias and Oolites, 

 and here he had also the advantage of many fellow-workers in 

 geology. Strickland's home at Cracombe House, Evesham, was not 

 far away to the north, and those of Dr. Wright and James Buckman 

 lay a few miles to the east. W. S. Symonds, afterwards rector of 

 Pendock, was from 1843 to 1845 curate of Offenham, near Evesham ; 

 and Lycett must about this time have commenced his labours at 

 Minchinhampton. It was not long before Mr. Brodie announced 

 his discovery of insect-remains in the Lower Lias in Gloucestershire, 

 and he published sections of the basement-beds of that formation, 

 and of the underlying strata (now grouped as Rhaetic), which he 

 had studied at Wainlode and Westbury-on-Severn. He also in the 

 same year (1842) drew attention to the occurrence of fossil plants 



