ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXXI 



Frederick Dixon, Esa. was educated at Eton, and completed 

 his professional studies as a surgeon under Sir Astley Cooper. From 

 the esteem in which his personal character, abilities and studious 

 habits were held by his teachers and fellow-pupils, there is little doubt 

 that his professional career would have been successful had he de- 

 voted himself to metropolitan practice. But he preferred the enjoy- 

 ments and greater leisure afforded by a country residence, and retired 

 early to reside on some property which he possessed at Worthing. 

 There he continued to practise up to the period of his fatal illness in 

 September last. His early tastes and habits of observation led him 

 to study the geology and to collect the fossils of parts of Sussex ad- 

 jacent to his residence ; and the peculiar skill with which he worked 

 out organic remains from their native matrix, made his collection 

 remarkable for the rarity, beauty and perfect condition of the speci- 

 mens, especially of those from the chalk-pits of the Vale of Arun, and 

 from the eocene beds of Bracklesham. 



The number of new facts thus brought to light by Mr. Dixon 

 determined him to publish a volume on the cretaceous and tertiary 

 formations of Sussex, illustrated by figures of undescribed fossils, 

 executed by the best artists whose skill he could command. He had 

 made considerable progress in the preparation of this work at the 

 period of his decease ; but as an author he was known only by a few 

 papers on the historical antiquities of his neighbourhood, published 

 in the Journal of the Sussex Archaeological Society. 



In the determination of his own rare and unique specimens of or- 

 ganic remains, he was so fortunate as to obtain the assistance of the 

 highest authorities in different departments of palaeontology ; and 

 the appendix to his projected work was designed to contain a descrip- 

 tion of the fossil reptiles and mammals b}^ Professor Owen ; of the 

 fossil fishes by Sir Philip Egerton ; of the echinoderms and Crustacea 

 by Professor Edward Forbes ; of the fossil shells by Mr. Sowerby ; 

 and of the fossil corals by Mr. Lonsdale : Mr. Dixon reserved to 

 himself an account of the geological structure of his county, and of 

 the localities of his fossil specimens, with other circumstances con- 

 nected with their discovery. He expended large sums on the beau- 

 tiful plates engraved for this publication, and you will learn with 

 pleasure that Prof. Owen has most liberally undertaken to complete 

 and pubUsh this posthumous work. Mr. Dixon died at the age of 



