ANNIVERSAKY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 33 



THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OE THE PRESIDENT, 



Henry Clifton Soeby, Esq., LL.D., E.R.S. 



In accordance with the usual iDractice, I have to preface my 

 address with some brief obituary notices of a few of those Eellows 

 and Eoreign Members whose loss has been announced to the Society 

 in the course of the past year *. 



James Nicol, E.R.S.E., E.G.S., &c., Professor of Natural History 

 in the University of Aberdeen, was born in 1810, in the Manse of 

 Traquair, near Inverleithen, Peeblesshire. His father, the Rev. 

 James Nicol, the Minister of the parish, and widely known for his 

 poetical writings, was a man of refined tastes, and enjoyed the friend- 

 ship of the more prominent men in science and literature in his day, 

 from Sir David Brewster to Wordsworth. On the death of his 

 father in 1819, young Nicol removed with the family to the neigh- 

 bouring village of Inverleithen. Here his early education was com- 

 pleted, partly in the parish school, partly in private, under the fos- 

 tering care and guidance of the Rev. Mr. Pate, the Minister of the 

 parish. The daily rambles of the young scholar amid the bold and 

 picturesque scenery of his native district, led him early to study its 

 geology, which at that time was wholly unknown. The absence of 

 fossils and of intelligible sections among these old rocks, as contrasted 

 with their great interest from the mineralogical and petrographical 

 points of view, had their natural eifect in directing his attention 

 most especially to the mineralogical aspect of geology. The early 

 bias thus originated was probably fixed for life by his subsequent 

 attendance at the classes of Professor Jameson. He entered the 

 University of Edinburgh in 1825 ; and after passing the Arts course, 

 he attended the Divinity HaU. After completing his studies in 

 Edinburgh, he crossed over to Germany and studied at the Univer- 

 sities of Berlin and Bonn, where he worked with the most famous 

 mineralogists of his day. His studies, however, were not exclusively 

 confined to natural science. He seems to have had a rare faculty for 

 the acquisition of knowledge ; and his acquaintance with the subject 

 he studied was always exact and profound. 



On the completion of his University studies, he returned to his 

 native valley of the Tweed, and devoted himself to the unravelling 

 of the more obscure problems of its geology. In 1841 he obtained 

 the prize awarded by the Highland Society for an essay on the Geo- 

 logy of Peeblesshire, and subsequently a second for his essay on the 

 Geology of the neighbouring county of Roxburghshire. In the first 

 of these publications the presence of fossils in the lower Palaeozoic 

 rocks of the Inverleithen district was made known for the first time 

 to the scientific world. 



* In the preparation of these notices I have to acknowledge with thanks 

 assistance received from Mr. H. Bauerman, Mr. 0. Lapworth, Prof. Seeley, 

 Dr. H. Woodward, and the Assistant Secretary. 



VOL. xxxvi. e 



