﻿Vol. 64.] ANNIVEESAEY ADDEE8S OF THE PEESIDENT. IxXV 



divided into sections, in each of which it may be more or less prac- 

 ticable to follow the chronological order, and to trace the gradual 

 development of particular lines of research. I propose therefore to 

 arrange my remarks under the following heads : — 1st, British 

 Geology : 2nd, Poreign Geology ; 3rd, Petrography ; 4th, Palaeon- 

 tology ; and 5th, Physiography. These subdivisions do not embrace 

 the whole of the wide range of the Society's work, but they may 

 suffice to enable us to form a fairly adequate conception of what the 

 general nature and amount of that work have been. 



I. British Geology. 



It was natural and proper that the Society should devote its 

 attention mainly to the study of the geology of the British Islands, 

 and that a considerable part of the bulk of its publications should 

 consist of detailed descriptions of the characters, distribution, and 

 local variations of the geological formations of which these islands 

 are built up. This feature, which appeared from the beginning 

 of the Society's career, remains a dominant characteristic down 

 to the present day. There are not many districts of the country 

 regarding which no information will be met with in our Transac- 

 tions, Proceedings, or Quarterly Journal, while of many places the 

 earliest or fullest account is to be found in these publications. 

 As a compendium of original contributions to British Geology 

 the Society's volumes must always remain a standard work of 

 reference. Inasmuch as geology was young when the Society was 

 born, many of the early papers, though dealing only with local 

 observations, have come to possess an historic interest in the 

 literature of our science, more particularly when they gave the first 

 descriptions of definite groups of strata, and afforded' stratigraphical 

 types which could be applied to the elucidation of the geological 

 succession in other countries. To some of these now classic memoirs 

 I shall refer in the sequel. 



Without attempting to enumerate more than a small proportion 

 of the total number of papers on British Geology which the Society 

 has published, I may select for special mention such as will 

 best serve to illustrate the character of this part of the Society's 

 activity, and for the sake of clearness and brevity I will group 

 my references in stratigraphical order. 



Should any geological student wish to trace the story of the 

 investigation of the pre-Cambrian rocks of these islands, he must, in 

 the first place, turn to the publications of the Geological Society. 



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