AXNIVEKSAKY ADDBESS OF THE PEESIDENT. XXIX 



If some of my theories, induced by that work, were long in being 

 recognized, the recognition has been all the more welcome when it 

 came. Probably I never should have been able to do what I have 

 done but for the mse example of my old master Sir Henry himself, 

 in his time the best thinker in England on the physical branch of 

 our science, and to whose remarkable work, ' Researches in Theo- 

 retical Geology,' all geologists are to this day indebted. 



The papers which I have written are mere offshoots from my 

 heavier work on the Geological Survey. Perhaps they are enough 

 for the readers ; but I wish they had been more numerous, for I 

 certainly have had many more in my mind. Two of these, on old 

 physical geographies, I have lately given to the Society ; and if they 

 should be printed, I shall be well pleased should they soon or late be 

 found worthy. The present physical geography of the world is but 

 the sequel of older physical geographies ; and to make out the history 

 of these is one of the ultimate aims of geology. These are the sub- 

 jects I have striven to master in part. I consider your award a 

 sign that I have had some success ; and if, before I cease to work, 

 I have a little more, I may well be content. 



Award op the Wollaston DojfATiON-ruND. 



The President then presented the Balance of the Proceeds of the 

 "WoUaston Donation-fund to Robert Etheridge, Esq., E.G.S., in 

 aid of the publication of his great stratigraphical Catalogue of 

 British Fossils, and addressed him as follows : — 



Mr. Etheridge, — The Council of the Society has awarded to you 

 the Proceeds of the "WoUaston Fund, to aid in prosecuting your 

 valuable work on the fossUs of the British Islands, stratigraphically 

 arranged. In this work, on which you have been engaged during 

 the last nine years, and which occupies nine volumes of MS., repre- 

 senting as many geological groups, you give the natural-history lists 

 of each group, and trace the history of each species both in time and 

 space. Of the magnitude of the work few can have any idea ; nor 

 would many have an idea of the marvellous extent of past life in 

 our small portion of the globe without a comparison of our recent 

 fauna with those (necessarily incomplete because only partly acces- 

 sible) which you have enumerated in your most useful lists. This 

 comparison shows : — 



