ANNIVERSAEY ADDKESS OF THE PEESIDENT. 47 



Besides his metallurgical works, Dr. Percy wrote several papers 

 on mineralogy, assaying, &c. His only contribution to the Society's 

 publications consisted in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, giving an 

 account of the analyses of some American coals, anthracites, &c., 

 published in the ' Quarterly Journal ' for 1845. Before his attention 

 was exclusively devoted to metallurgy, Dr. Percy had published 

 several contributions to medical science. He was also a writer of 

 great force and originality on social and political questions. 



But above all it is as a teacher that our late Pellow is most 

 warmly remembered by those who, like myself, had the advantage 

 of hearing the admirable course of lectures that he delivered at the 

 School of Mines. Rarely in any country, probably never in England, 

 was a more brilliant and gifted staff brought together for teaching- 

 purposes than those who, under Sir H. de la Beche, established a 

 mining school in London in 1851. Amongst the whole of them, as 

 I can testify from memory, in the unanimous opinion of the 

 students, Dr. Percy's lectures on metallurgy, and Sir W. W. Smyth's 

 on mining, were pre-eminent for clearness, command of the subject, 

 and the power of conveying information from the master to the 

 learner. It is not surprising that Dr. Percy has founded a school 

 of metallurgy in Britain, and that there is, at present, scarcely a 

 scientific metallurgist or assay er who has made himself known in 

 this country by his work who has not passed through Percy's labo- 

 ratory and learned science from his teaching. And he was a man 

 not easily forgotten. Singularly tall, towering by a head over those 

 around him, spare, yet not weakly built, with strongly-marked 

 features, and a peculiar but very striking delivery, a good command 

 of language, and the most perfect originality of ideas, a more 

 thoroughly impressive and suggestive lecturer could not be found. 

 That there are at this day able teachers of metallurgy in Britain, 

 that metallurgical processes are to some extent directed by an 

 intelligent knowledge of the chemical reactions involved, and not 

 by the kind of guess-work that so long prevailed, is due to the 

 influence of our late Pellow and to the instruction given by him. 



Dr. Percy was appointed Superintendent of the Yentiiation in the 

 Houses of Parliament in 1865 (February 6), and held the post till his 

 death. In 1876 the Iron and Steel Institute recognized his services 

 to metallurgy by awarding to him the Bessemer Medal; and in 

 1885 he was elected President of the Institute, and, despite failing 

 health, discharged the duties of the chair with characteristic ability. 

 The Howard Prize was presented to him by the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers in 1887, and, only two days before his death, he received 



