XXXVI PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to which he was much attached, and by whom he was much respected. 

 Perhaps no one ever laboured with more zeal and with more ability to 

 discover all the phenomena connected with drift- deposits, or to reduce 

 them to a diluvial origin ; but, as time went on, he appears to have 

 fallen into the more general views entertained on the subject, and, 

 though he probably greatly modified his original opinions, many of 

 his discoveries were of great use to other geologists, and have been 

 noticed with respect by them, as, for example, by Mr. Conybeare, in his 

 Report on Geology. In 1841, he published his work entitled * Prac- 

 tical Geology and Mineralogy,' a work of very considerable merit, and 

 especially remarkable for the sound and liberal views which he sets 

 forth on that long- disputed subject, the description of creation in 

 Genesis. " The assailants of revelation," he observes, " usually as- 

 sume, and too many of its defenders argue on the assumption, that 

 we have reason to expect a system of physical science in the sacred 

 writings ; but the slightest consideration of the purpose for which 

 they were given must convince us that such a revelation would have 

 been quite at variance with their professed object. That object was 

 to make man acquainted with his relations to his Creator, with his - 

 original state, his present condition, his future hopes." Would that 

 those who still keep up the argument, whether friends or enemies of 

 science, would adhere to this view of the object of Scripture, and 

 neither embitter the minds of their opponents by acrimonious dis- 

 putations, nor endanger the cause of true religion by injudicious 

 assertions ! 



Our late friend, for I must emphatically call him so, was fre- 

 quently engaged of late in discussing the origin of the sand-pipes 

 of the chalk ; and his papers are so recent that all must recollect how 

 steadily he maintained their production by the wearing action of the 

 sea, in opposition to that by the eroding action of water charged with 

 carbonic acid. In this, as in most other geological phenomena, every 

 form of sand-pipe cannot perhaps be explained by any one cause ; and 

 it would therefore be unwise to reject in toto any reasonable cause, 

 correct in principle, because incapable of explaining every effect. 

 The wisest plan is to adopt a give-and-take principle, and to ascribe 

 each separate effect to its own natural and efficient cause. 



The very useful manner in which Mr. Trimmer had latterly applied 

 his extensive knowledge of drift-formations to practical draining, 

 obtained for him the patronage of Lord Berners of Keythorpe as a 

 large and scientific agriculturist, and must cause him to be deeply 

 regretted by that important and valuable class of society, the prac- 

 tical farmers : it had, indeed, been his principal object through life 

 to make science an instrument in promoting the welfare of mankind ; 

 and his own predilection for the theory of currents, whether passing 

 over the surface of dry land, or at the bottom of a sea, producing a 

 furrowed surface, led him to resort to such furrows as a natural 

 system of drains. We shall long remember him as an enthusiastic 

 yet unprejudiced geologist, and as a simple-minded, frank, and 

 honourable man, the worthy descendant of the friend of some of our 

 childish days, Mrs, Trimmer. 



