﻿Vol. 64.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OE THE PRESIDENT. CV 



The first volume of the Transactions of the Geological Society 

 bears witness to the mineralogical bent of our founders. 'Not 

 only do almost all the papers deal with the mineralogical rather 

 than the palgeontological aspect of rocks, but they include some 

 which are entirely devoted to the description of simple minerals. 

 It is curious to note the rapid disappearance of such papers from 

 the Society's publications. There can be no doubt that this dis- 

 appearance was the sign of a gradual and widespread change in 

 the general attitude of the scientific mind in this country towards 

 the study of the mineral kingdom.^ The uprise of geology and the 

 absorbing interest of its problems regarding the history of our planet 

 and the succession of plants and animals which have lived on its 

 surface, gradually drew attention away from the study of minerals 

 and of rocks considered as mineral masses. Mineralogy, in the 

 modern sense of the term, ceased to be prominent as one of the 

 departments of science which the Society cultivated, while the 

 investigation of rocks likewise fell into neglect. Probably in no 

 country where geology was actively cultivated did the petro- 

 graphical branch of the science drop so far behind as it did here. 

 We have only to look at the English text-books of the time to 

 perceive how little regard was paid to the mineralogical and chemical 

 composition of rocks, or to their genetic relations to each other as part 

 of the evolution of the earth's crust. Now and then an attempt 

 was made to remedy this deficiency. Thus MaccuUoch published in 

 1821 his 'Classification of Eocks'; but it failed to awaken an 

 abiding interest in the subject. Ten years later, De la Beche, who, 

 more than any other English geologist of his time, realized the im- 

 portance of the study of rocks, published his excellent ' Geological 

 Manual,' in which he treated the ' unstratified rocks,' chiefiy from 

 the chemical side, as fully as his space and the available knowledge 

 of the day would permit. Still more valuable were his suggestive 



^ The condition of the petrographieal side of the science, fifteen years after 

 the rise of the Geological Society, may be judged from the classic ' Outlines ' of 

 Conybeare & Phillips, published in 1822. It is true that this volume deals 

 almost entirely with the stratified fossiliferous formations of the country, the 

 eruptive masses as a whole being reserved for the second part of the work, which 

 unfortunately was never written. But the igneous rocks associated with the 

 Carboniferous System were discussed. In taking a general view of this part of 

 their subject, the authors confess that ' it is to be regretted that little attention 

 has been paid by our English geologists, with the exception of Dr. MaccuUoch, 

 to the precise determination of the mineralogical characters of these rocks ' 

 (p. 439). 



VOL. LXIV. 7l 



