Vol. S^.'] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OE THE PRESIDENT. H 



Fellow of the Society will, of course, receive due notice, as well as 

 ■a detailed statement of the arrangements when these have been 

 finally settled. Invitations to attend the meetings will be imme- 

 diately sent out to all our Foreign Members and Foreign Corre- 

 spondents. Geological Societies, Geological Surveys, and learned 

 institutions which have a geological side will be asked to send 

 delegates. Personal invitations will also be addressed to geologists 

 of note in the Old and the xSew World who may not be already 

 enrolled in our foreign lists. It is hoped that to these various 

 invitations there will be a friendly response, either by personal 

 representation or in writing. We may not impossibly be privileged 

 to see a larger company of geologists assembled together here next 

 September than has ever been gathered together in this country 

 before. 



It is thought that the official programme may extend over three 

 days in London. The arrangements for each of these three days 

 are under consideration, but I may mention now that I propose 

 to give my postponed Address as the piece de resistance of one of 

 the forenoon or afternoon meetings. In that address I shall offer 

 a sketch of the state of geological science outside of Britain at the 

 time when our Society was founded, and indicate the external 

 influences that affected its start. By this choice of a subject I 

 hope to interest our foreign friends, while at the same time in- 

 viting our own Fellows into a domain of the history of science 

 which is perhaps less familiar than it deserves to be. The chronicle 

 of the Society itself during the first hundred years of its existence 

 has been carefully and fully compiled from all available sources by 

 our colleague, Mr. Horace B. Woodward. His volume is now at 

 the printers', and will be in the hands of Fellows in the course of 

 the summer. 



Excursions to places of geological note in this country will 

 probably be arranged, some to precede and others to follow the 

 meeting here. The various museums and places of interest in 

 London will, of course, be shown to our visitors ; and there will 

 doubtless be no lack of public and private hospitality. It is anti- 

 cipated that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge will receive 

 our foreign friends. But the details of these various arrangements 

 have still to be worked out. 



From this bright anticipation of festivities in the near future I 

 must now regretfully turn to the moarnful duty which devolves 



