ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 57 



discovery did not cease when either De la Beche, Miirchison, or Sedg- 

 mck rested from their labours ; and it needs no prophet to foretell 

 that in the dsLjs to come others will "rise on stepping stones of our 

 dead selves to higher things." 



Another good effect on geological progress is likely to result from 

 this honest recantation. The establishment of a Geological Survey 

 as a department of the State is an immense boon to a country ; but 

 there is always some danger lest the systematic method of their 

 work, and a natural, I may say laudable, esjjrit de corps should 

 lead its members to regard workers unconnected with them as 

 intruders, and to speak with some contempt of " amateurs." Per- 

 sonally I should not admit that a man who has devoted his life to 

 the study and teaching of geology is not as fully entitled to be 

 called a Professional Geologist as one who is an officer of a Survey. 

 Indeed it appears to me that in the two ranks you will generally 

 have developed capacities equally important, which can very rarely 

 be united in any one man. The official surveyor obtains knowledge 

 of great accuracy and minuteness in a field which, from the nature 

 of the case, must be rather limited ; hence he becomes what we may 

 call a specialized stratigraphist ; or, if not, he must occasionally be 

 set to execute work for which he is imperfectly qualified, and so 

 may make serious mistakes. The unofficial geologist, unfettered 

 by the requirements of an office and the necessity of returning a 

 seemly annual report of progress to his paymasters, the State, is 

 able not onl^ to follow his special bent, but also to extend his 

 experience over a wider area. Travel, as it has been well said, is 

 an essential in the education of a geologist ; but to travel much 

 requires a more liberal allowance of time and of stipend than can 

 be obtained from an English Government. But accepting for a 

 moment the definition of a professional geologist, as commonly un- 

 derstood, there is and has been sometimes a danger that the class- 

 feeling of which I have spoken should be aroused. It would be an 

 ill day for science if the Geological Survey should ever become 

 so narrow-minded as to resent ex officio the criticism of unattached 

 competent observers, or one of the latter find any special pleasure 

 in dilating upon a chance mistake which bore the imprimatur of 

 Jermyn Street. It would be the greatest disaster if the votaries of 

 geology became divided into " an establishment " and " noncon- 

 formists," and imported into their difi'erences a spirit too prevalent 

 in theology. Messrs. Peach and Home, by their unprejudiced inves- 

 tigation into the facts in the field, and the Director General by his 

 frank admission of a past mistake, have done their best to close a rift 

 of which I have sometimes observed indications. In the future 

 it will be evident that aU alike are liable to err, and that the dis- 

 <30very of truth is not limited to any age or any workers. Science 

 needs no infallible church and admits of no Pope. 



On these occasions you have for long past tacitly indulged j^our 

 President with an opportunity of making some remarks on any 

 department of geology in which he is specially interested. Of this 



