¥ol. 51.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Ivii 



" Here rests his head on balls of album grcecum, 

 A youth who loved Cave-earth and stalagmite ; 

 If fossil bones they held, he'd keenly seek 'em ! 

 Exhume and name them with supreme delight. 



His hammer, chisels, compass, lie beside him ; 



His friends have o'er him piled this heap of stones : 

 Alas ! alas ! poor fellow ! woe betide him, 



If in the other world there are no bones ! " 



He died at his residence, 'Lamorna,' Torquay, March 17th, 

 1894. 



William Topley was born at Greenwich on March 13th, 1841 

 he received his early education at local schools, but, from 1858 

 to 1861, he enjoyed the valuable scientific and practical training 

 of the Royal School of Mines. 



In 1862 he was appointed an Assistant Geologist on the Geological 

 Survey. He commenced his field-work under the guidance of Dr. 

 (now Professor) Le Neve Foster, who was engaged in the Survey of 

 the "Wealden area. There he was initiated into the methods of 

 geological mapping, and gained a detailed knowledge of the Cre- 

 taceous and jNeocomian formations ; his interest was also aroused in 

 questions of Physical Geology, to which, for many years, he gave 

 particular attention. 



In conjunction with his colleague, Dr. Poster, he made a study of 

 the superficial deposits over a large part of the Wealden area, and 

 more especially of the gravels of the Medway Valley ; and together 

 they elaborated in 1865 the well-known paper in which they brought 

 their knowledge to bear on the vexed subject of the Denudation 

 of the Weald. 1 In this essay they gave numerous facts and new 

 arguments to prove, what had in general terms been taught by 

 Ramsay, that the main features of the ground were sculptured by 

 the agency of rain and rivers. 



On the completion of the Geological Survey of the Wealden area, 

 the preparation of the descriptive memoir devolved upon William 

 Topley. Other colleagues, Mr. P. Drew, Mr. C. Gould, and Dr. Poster, 

 who had mapped large portions of the region, had resigned their 

 official positions ; but Topley had had numerous opportunities of be- 

 coming generally acquainted with the entire district. How carefully 

 his memoir was written is known to every geologist. The book, 

 which was published in 1875, at once became the standard work of 



1 See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxi. (1865) pp. 443-474. 



