ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 41 



workers ; but all must admire and gratefully recognize his patience 

 and industry in the collection of facts. 



For some years before his death his health was grievously im- 

 paired, but neither infirmity nor debility, nor even pain, could turn 

 him from his beloved studies. His last contribution to our Journal, 

 read at the opening meeting of the present session, was on the 

 remarkable fossiliferous Tertiary deposit, not long since discovered, 

 at St. Erth, near Penzance. A portion of that paper is printed in 

 the current number of our Journal; but Mr. Searles Wood, in 

 deference to the advice of friends, withdrew the list of species which 

 he had given, in order that he might again present it with full 

 descriptions of the more novel or more important forms. It will be 

 remembered that, in the interesting discussion which followed, Dr. 

 Gwyn Jeffreys spoke at some length against the view favoured by 

 Mr. Wood as to the general equivalence of the deposit with some 

 part of the K-ed Crag. We little thought then that in so brief a 

 space both these accurate observers would have ceased from their 

 labours. In concluding this too brief notice of a most earnest 

 worker and most amiable man, I shall venture to quote a few sen- 

 tences from a letter to Professor Judd, written by Mr. Searles W^ood 

 only a few days * before his death, because it seems to me to give 

 unconsciously a far better portrait of the man than I could hope to 

 draw. 



Speaking of a recent severe attack from which he had in part 

 recovered, but which was complicated by an ailment in one foot, 

 he adds : — " This compels me to maintain a recumbent posture all 

 day as well as night, but it has not prevented my renewing my close 

 examination of the St.-Erth clay for several hours a day. This clay, 

 however, is so sterile that I often work for days without finding a 

 perfect shell or a fragment worth anything for determination ; and 

 I fancy that no one who had not perforce the leisure that I have, 

 and a rather exceptional perseverance, would work at it as I am 

 doing, and as I hope for many months yet to do." It was not so 

 written : eight days later he passed away. 



John Gwyn Jeffreys was born at Swansea on January 18, 

 1809, and early displayed a talent for natural history. At the age 

 of nineteen he contributed to the Linnean Society a paper on the 

 Pneumonobranchous MoUusca ; and the study of this class formed at 

 first the relaxation and afterwards the work of his life. He was 

 elected a member of the Linnean Society in 1829, and of the Eoyal 

 in 1840, not joining our Society until the year 1861. He was also 

 an active member of the British Association, in which he held 

 various offices, and in 1877 that of President of the Biological 

 Section. At the last meeting, at Montreal, he contributed a valuable 

 communication on the Mollusca of the two sides of the :^rorth 

 Atlantic, which is being printed in extenso in the volume for 1884. 

 From the University of St. Andrews he received the honorary degree 

 * Dated December 6, 1884. 



