Vol. 6t,.~\ ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS Of THE PRESIDENT. lxv 



John George Goodchild, born near Loudon on May 26th, 1844, 

 was for forty years a member of the Geological Survey, in which 

 he had a more varied experience than usually falls to the lot of 

 most members of that organization. Joining the staff in 1867 as 

 one of the young recruits at that time enlisted in the service, he 

 was engaged for some years chiefly in mapping portions of the 

 North- "Western Counties of England, including tracts near the Lake 

 District. Gifted with a keen eye and an ardent imagination, he 

 quickly seized the dominant structural features of a district, and 

 drew his conclusions as to the tectonic relations of the rocks. 

 These were always ingenious and suggestive, though subsequent 

 more prolonged study of the ground by his colleagues might neces- 

 sitate the modification of lines traced by him on the maps. In his 

 earlier years he was an indefatigable hill- climber, but an affection 

 of the heart eventually deprived him of his powers of exertion until, 

 in the end, such duties had to be assigned to him in the head-office 

 as would relieve him from the strain of field-work. For some time 

 he continued at the Jermyn Street Museum, charged with the 

 preparation of maps for the engraver and various kinds of Memoir 

 work. At last in 1889, when the Geological-Survey collections in 

 the Edinburgh Museum had grown so extensive as to require the 

 constant care of a resident keeper, he was transferred to the staff 

 of the Survey in Scotland and placed in charge of these collections. 

 In this new position Goodchild obtained greater scope for his 

 remarkable and versatile powers. He carried out the arrangement 

 of the Survey collections, and subsequently of the Heddle Mineral 

 Cabinet, with admirable order and clearness, so that they have 

 become a most attractive and instructive assemblage of the rocks, 

 minerals, and fossils of Scotland. While still in London, he had 

 given courses of lectures at Toynbee Hall on geological subjects 

 which were much appreciated. His position in Edinburgh afforded 

 him still further and better opportunity of developing this side of 

 his capacity. He became an effective lecturer there, and conducted 

 popular excursions to places of geological interest in the neighbour- 

 hood. His pen was not less active than his lips. He continued to 

 publish a continuous stream of notes and papers on a wide and 

 diversified circle of subjects. His range of acquirement in natural 

 history was considerable. To his knowledge of birds he added the 

 gift of being able to portray them in drawings of extreme accuracy 

 and artistic effect. He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 

 1884, and in 1893 received the Wollaston Fund in recognition of the 



