﻿CXxiv tROCEBDiKeS Ol* THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I908, 



though, in our case, a watchful Assistant Secretary may be trusted 

 to correct mistakes in grammar, we cannot expect him to remedy 

 incurable defects of style. Moreover, the growth of minuter 

 observation and specialization has engendered an excessive love 

 of details, which, although essential to be noted in the course 

 of an investigation, may not be necessary in the presentation of 

 its results. We are naturally attached to particulars which it 

 has cost us much time and labour to obtain, and we are sometimes 

 tempted to forget that they may, nevertheless, have little general 

 interest or importance, and when introduced too copiously into 

 a paper, may so overload it as to make it wearisome and 

 unreadable, and to obscure such really valuable points as 

 we desire to make known. A good paper should not consist 

 mainly of rough laboratory-notes, or of the jottings of a field- 

 notebook. 



As a means of awakening us to the existence and increase of 

 these regrettable modern tendencies, and perhaps in some degree 

 as a corrective of them, I would urge that the papers which record 

 the early stages of a science deserve attentive reading. In no 

 case, perhaps, is such reading more beneficial than in our own. 

 In perusing the volumes of the Society's Transactions we find 

 ourselves amidst an atmosphere of quiet and leisurely work, un- 

 disturbed by the signs of any race for priority or any hurry for 

 notice. We are sensible of a general compactness of arrangement 

 and elegance of style, which betoken culture. We see, too, that the 

 Society was as deliberate in the publication of papers as the 

 authors were in the preparation of them, several years sometimes 

 elapsing between the reading of a paper and its issue in printed 

 form. A return to these bygone ways is of course impossible, and 

 even if it were possible, it would not always be desirable. Science, 

 like every other branch of human progress, marches with swifter 

 strides than it did when our Society was young. We could not 

 now forego our quarterly publication of the papers that have 

 been read at our meetings. We should not wish to delay the 

 appearance of any good paper until the results contained in it 

 had been forestalled elsewhere. 



In conclusion, let me say that I have long been of opinion 

 that the Fellows of the Society who contribute papers do not 

 always realize to the full their responsibility in so doing. It ought 

 never to be forgotten that we are trustees of the good repute of 

 the Society, and are bound to hand it down unimpaired to the 



