XXXn PROCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



with organic life, and the improbability which seems to attach to 

 the idea of any considerable increment of heat being derived from 

 external sources, inclined the inquirer to look to the changes of form 

 of sea and land, and to oceanic currents, as the probable agents of 

 those past variations in climate which geology has made known. 



Mr. Hopkins was elected President of the British Association for 

 1853, at the meeting in Hull, and gave an excellent philosophical 

 address, devoted in great part to the rival views of progression and 

 non-progression as applied to geological history. 



About this time Mr. Hopkins applied himself with much zeal to 

 experiments bearing upon various physical questions, and in 1854 he 

 gave an account of what he had done, in company with Messrs. Eair- 

 bairn and Joule, to test the effect of pressure on the temperature of 

 fusion of different substances. 



In 1857 he followed this up by a paper to the British Association 

 on the Conductivity of various substances for Heat, showing how, if 

 the increment of temperature observed in mines and weUs be due to 

 heat transmitted from a central nucleus, the rate ought to be very 

 different in different formations. 



At the meeting of the Association in Leeds Mr. Hopkins was Pre- 

 sident of the Geological Section, and delivered an Address dealing 

 chiefly with cleavage and glaciers — subjects to which he had devoted 

 much attention, and which had received a new impulse from the 

 experiments of Tyndall and Sorby. 



Although stiU attending these meetings up to that of Bath in 1864, 

 Mr. Hopkins was then evidently in declining health ; and it was with 

 a very painful feehng that his friends found he was soon afterwards 

 retiring from the scientific circles of which he had long been an 

 ornament. 



Those who had the advantage of his private acquaintance will 

 always remember the fine taste in art, the conversational power, and 

 the high tone of feeling for which he was preeminent ; whilst other 

 members of the scientific world, who only knew him in his public 

 capacity, have always highly appreciated his courteousness of manner, 

 and the vigour and precision of thought which characterized his 

 speeches and his writings. 



The Eev. William Whewell, D.D., P.E.S., for a long series of 

 years one of the most brilliant lights of the University of Cambridge, 

 was taken from us in March last, at the age of seventy-two, after 

 a few days suffering from the effects of a fall from his horse. Dr. 

 Whewell had the merit of raising himself from a humble position in 

 life by seconding with his industry and perseverance the efforts of 

 friends, who enabled him to attend the Grammar School, Lancaster, 

 his birthplace, and afterwards to enter at Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 in 1812. His power, physical and mental, soon became apparent to 

 his University compeers, and he was thought certain by his friends 

 to take the highest places. But a very remarkable man, who died 

 at an early age, Mr. Edward Jacob, was in the meanwhile working 

 .quietly at Caius College, and completely outstripped his antagonist 



