ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXX1U 



" The Knowledge of Nature, for the instruction of Children," has this 

 remark : " It is evident from the construction of every part of nature, 

 from the noblest to the most insignificant, that they are all most ad- 

 mirably formed ; they must therefore have been the work of some 

 wise, powerful Being, infinitely our superior;" whilst the closing 

 words of her grandson, in his work on " Practical Geology and Mine- 

 ralogy," are, " The structure of the earth, as well as the mechanism 

 of the heavens, proclaims the Divinity of the Hand which made them. 

 The one tells of power and wisdom displayed through the immensity 

 of space, the other tells of the same attributes displayed through the 

 immensity of time ; and thus every bone and shell and leaf disinterred 

 from the dust of the earth leads our thoughts towards eternity and 

 the world of spirits, and tells us that, though all things visible are 

 subject to change, they are the work of one invisible and eternal 

 Being, ' the same yesterday, today, and for ever.' " 



About the year 1806, young Trimmer was placed as a pupil with 

 the Eev. "William Davison, at that time Curate of New Brentford. 

 Under that highly talented preceptor, he pursued his classical and 

 mathematical studies with such diligence as to gain the esteem of 

 his preceptor, which he retained until his decease in the year 1852. 



When about nineteen years of age, he superintended for his, 

 father some copper-mines in North Wales ; whilst thus employed, he 

 gained a practical knowledge of mineralogy. After several years 

 he undertook for his father the management of a farm in Middlesex; 

 and, being thus engaged for some years, he acquired during that 

 period a portion of that knowledge of soils which in after-life he so 

 prominently connected with geology. During this period of his life 

 he continued to reside with his parents, and his evenings were not 

 unfrequently spent in Scriptural study. When engaged in other 

 reading, the poet Spenser was his especial favourite ; and his intimate 

 acquaintance with every page of the " Faerie Queene" may have fur- 

 nished him in part with that great command of language, so frequently 

 evident in his writings. In prose-writing his model was Addison, 

 the elegance of whose periods he admired : not unlike that author, he 

 wrote with the greatest facility, never pausing for ideas or for lan- 

 guage to express them ; and it was not his habit to reconstruct any 

 sentence he had once written : he composed also with ease in poetry, 

 and gave expression to his thoughts in flowing and harmonious verse, 

 and at an early age translated from the Italian a considerable portion 

 of Tasso's " Jerusalem delivered." 



In the year 1825 he was again in North Wales, working for his 

 father some slate- quarries, one of them situate at Bangor, and the 

 other two between Snowdon and Caernarvon. At the latter town he 

 established, by means of public subscriptions, a museum, to which he 

 gave many valuable organic remains, some of which he had met with 

 when occasionally visiting Ireland, but the greater part he had long 

 been engaged in collecting from the ossiferous deposits at Brentford. 

 Whilst working these quarries, at which employment he continued 

 for some years, he resided chiefly in the Yale of Nantlle, where he 

 was occasionally visited by his Mend the late Dr. Buckland, whom 



