AXXIVERSAEY ADPKESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 39 



candour in setting- out the objections which could be urged against 

 them), and his tolerance of the prejudices of others when he knew 

 them to be earnestly seeking after truth. 



Born at Shrewsbury, on the 12th of February 1809, he appears to 

 have received his early training in the celebrated Grammar School of 

 that town. 



In Edinburgh he began the study of medicine (in which profes- 

 sion his father had attained considerable eminence); but having no 

 natural inclination towards it he abandoned it and entered the 

 University of Cambridge, where, under the genial teaching of Prof. 

 Henslow, that love of Nature was kindled in his mind which never 

 after ceased to animate it, and which bore such splendid fruit. In 

 1831, through an introduction by Prof. Henslow, he began, as natu- 

 ralist in H.M.S. ' Beagle,' that voyage to the southern hemisphere of 

 which eight years later, being then a Secretary of this Society, he 

 gave so charming an account in his " Journal " of the voyage, one 

 of the most fascinating books ever written. Elected a Fellow of 

 our Society in 1836, one of bis first contributions, read on 1st No- 

 vember, 1837, " On the Formation of Vegetable Mould through the 

 agency of Earth-worms" (the subject of the last work which issued 

 from his pen), bore the same stamp of carefulness and thoroughness 

 which characterized all his writings. In 1841 he contributed a 

 valuable paper " On the Distribution of Erratic Boulders and on the 

 Contemporaneous Unstratified Deposits of South America,''* in which 

 he showed good grounds for attributing these to the agency of floating 

 ice. His memoir " On the Structure and Distribution of Coral 

 Reefs " contained views on the origin of atolls, before little under- 

 stood, which quickly gained general reception ; and his observations 

 on the volcanic islands visited during his voyage in the i Beagle ' 

 witness how closely and carefully he studied t\: - .r natural phenomena. 

 His ' Geological Observations,' published in a collective form in 

 1867, should be read by all. In later years his attention was turned 

 towards those lines of work with which his memory will ever be 

 connected; but to the close of his life it is well known that he never 

 ceased to feel a deep interest in our branch of natural science and 

 in this Society. The magnificent homage paid to his remains was a 

 fitting sequel to so glorious a life. 



At St. Leonards-on-Sea, in the 86th year of his age, died, in the 

 second week of August, Sir Woodbine Parish, K.C.H., F.R.S. 

 Elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1832, Sir Woodbine, 

 then W. Parish, lun., having previously, when H.IL Charge 

 d' Affaires and Consul-General at Buenos Ayres, presented to the 

 Society some valuable fossil remains of Mammalia, communicated in 

 the year of his election an account of fresh discoveries which added 

 greatly to our knowledge of the Megatherium and Glyjptodon. In 

 1838 he communicated two papers on collections of fossils made 

 by him at Bognor and Hastings. He rose to the office of Vice- 

 President of our Society, and to the close of his life ever took a 

 lively interest in its welfare. 



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