ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXIX 



ing the objects in viev/. He was intimately acquainted "witli all that 

 had been previously done, towards opening out the mineral resources 

 of India ; indeed several of the previous surveys had been set on foot 

 by himself; and when explaining to me his views, he justly observed 

 that a Government should limit itself to the task of collecting and 

 publishing correct information, and giving a right direction to private 

 enterprise, without attempting to derive pecuniary profits, from its 

 undertakings. 



Sir Edward Ryan has shown me a pamphlet, entitled " Hints for 

 collecting information, compiled for the expedition to China," which 

 was planned by Lord Auckland in 1840, and intended to direct the 

 attention of the officers employed on that service to the acquisition 

 of knowledge of various kinds, both relating to science and the arts 

 of life, and the manners, customs and languages of the people whom 

 they might visit. In these instructions we trace the germ and to a 

 great extent the model of that Manual of Scientific Inquiry, for which, 

 several years later, when he became First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord 

 Auckland obtained the editorship of Sir John Herschel. Such of you 

 as have studied this most useful Manual are aware how largely the 

 Fellows of this Society have contributed to its contents ; the geology 

 having been written by Mr. Darwin, the mineralogy by Sir H. De la 

 Beche, the geography by Mr. Hamilton, the memoir on earthquakes 

 by Mr. Mallet, and the zoology by Prof. Owen. 



William Clift, Esq., for many years Keeper of the Hunterian 

 Museum of the College of Surgeons, served several times in the Coun- 

 cil of this Society between the years 1832 and 1837. From an early 

 period many of the ablest and most active members of the Society 

 were in the habit of consulting him on all questions bearing on fossil 

 osteology, and we find frequent acknowledgements of his valuable ser- 

 vices in the papers of Dr. Buckland, Dr. Conybeare and others. Dr. 

 Mantell also, in his first paper on the Iguanodon, published so long 

 ago as 1825, says, " I resolved to avail myself of the offer of Mr. Clift, 

 (to whose kindness and liberality I hold myself particularly indebted,) 

 to assist me in comparing the fossil teeth with those of the recent 

 Lacertae in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The re- 

 sults of this examination proved highly satisfactory, for in an Iguana 

 which Mr. Stutchbury had prepared to present to the College, we 



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