ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Ixxxi 
Museum or Practicat GreoLtocy, Lonpon. 
This establishment, which, but for the reasons before assigned 
for the Survey, I should have had some hesitation in naming, has 
also, by the fostering care of Government on the one side, and by the 
kind co-operation and support of the public on the other, consider- 
ably advanced during the past year. Thanks to the donations so fre- 
quently and liberally bestowed, its collections became so greatly in- 
creased that the Government is now erecting the considerable build- 
ing which the members of this Society may have observed extending 
from Piccadilly to Jermyn Street, where these collections, illustrating 
both the science and applications of geology, can be made properly 
accessible to the public. There is much satisfaction in adding, that 
even to the limited portion of the museum which can now be exhi- 
bited, the number of persons admitted during the past year far ex- 
ceeded that of the year previous, the admissions being daily and as a 
matter of course gratuitous. Among the various subjects investigated 
at the Museum of Practical Geology during 1847 for the public or the 
Government, perhaps one for the Admiralty may he specially men- 
tioned to this Society, inasmuch as it relates to the British coals best 
suited to our Steam Navy. A first report on this subject, one so im- 
portant in many respects, will be presented to Parliament in a few 
days. 
It may be right to notice that a second volume of the Memoirs of 
the Geological Survey of Great Britain and of the Museum of Prac- 
tical Geology in London will be speedily published, and that it was 
even once hoped to have placed a copy of it on your table this day. 
British Works on GEOLOGY. 
Our last Anniversary closely followed upon the publication of a 
sixth edition of Mr. Lyell’s ‘ Principles of Geology,’ so extensive and 
long-contmued has been the public demand for this work, now, 
though including the needful additions which the progress of our 
science demands, comprised within a single volume. Our present 
Anniversary closely succeeds to the publication of a sixth edition of 
Dr. Mantell’s ‘Wonders of Geology,’ a work which its author has 
contrived in a great measure to rewrite during the intervals of ar- 
duous professional engagements, and also, amid the same avocations, 
_ to accomplish the publication, during the past year, of his work on 
the Isle of Wight. To this we would refer for a very valuable 
account of the geology of that island, founded as well upon long- 
continued personal observation, as upon the labours of his predeces- 
sors and contemporaries. When a general.work on geology attains a 
sixth edition, it is manifest that the public have marked their view of 
its merits; at the same time it cannot but be gratifying to the Fel- 
lows of this Society to see that the desire to acquire a knowledge of 
the science they cultivate is now no longer restricted to a few, but 
has become so extended, as to require the publication of repeated 
editions of works written to convey the information desired. 
VOL. IV.—PART I. of 
