XXXIV PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



results of the investigations of Mr. Darwin in South America, of 

 Cautley and Palconer in Bengal, and of Sedgwick and Murchison in 

 Devonshire and Siluria,, together with the interesting descriptive com- 

 munications of Strickland and Hamilton on Asia Minor, of Malcolmson, 

 Grant, and Maclelland on India, and the physical inquiries of William 

 Hopkins and Robert Were Fox. In his Presidential Addresses he 

 sought to draw a clear line of distinction between the descriptive 

 portion of our science and geological dynamics, to the latter of 

 which his training, and probably his mental constitution, directed 

 his taste. Especially was he inclined to dwell on the necessity of 

 experimental data and of calculation. " Of late years," he said, " an 

 opinion has taken root among us, that the dynamics of geology must 

 invoke the aid of mathematical reasoning and calculation, as the 

 dynamics of astronomy did at the turning-point of its splendid 

 career. Nor can we hesitate to accept this opinion, and to look for- 

 wards to the mathematical cultivation of physical geology as one of 

 the destined stages of our progress towards truth. But we must re- 

 member that, in order to pursue this path with advantage, we have 

 in every instance two steps to make, each of which requires great 

 sagacity, and may require much time and labour. These two steps 

 are, to propose the proper problem and to solve it." 



The interest with which he regarded our Society was manifold. 

 " It had always been," he wrote, " an object of his admiration and 

 respect, not only from the importance and range of its scientific ob- 

 jects, the wide and exact knowledge which it accumulates, the phi- 

 losophical spirit which it calls into play, the boundless prospect of 

 advance which it offers, but also for the manner in which its meet- 

 ings and the intercourse of its members has ever been conducted ; " 

 — and, again, that as it had always been one of his most cherished 

 occupations to trace the principles and laws by which the progress 

 of human knowledge is regulated from age to age, he found it a per- 

 manent and most instructive lesson to have had brought familiarly 

 under his notice, in a living form, the daily advance of a science so 

 large and so varied as ours. 



Strongly attached as was WheweU to the long-established disci- 

 pline of his University in classics and in pure and mixed mathema- 

 tics, he was far from objecting to the introduction of other branches 

 of knowledge, provided they were so treated as properly to conduce 

 to mental culture. The rules of sound reasoning, he held, ought to 

 govern every exposition of science, however popular ; and no wish 

 to avoid wearying or perplexing the reader can set aside the obliga- 

 tion of the accurate use of terms and the paramount authority of 

 logical connexion. Actuated by these views he appHed himself to 

 the modification of the studies as connected with the Cambridge 

 Examinations, and aided materially -in the establishment of the 

 Moral and Natural Sciences Tripos. 



Although he thus thoroughly appreciated the scope and bearings 

 of geology, Dr. Whewell does not appear to have been himself an 

 observer. His only communication to the Society was characteristic 

 of the man. At a time, in 1847, when the power of waves of 



