ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXX1X 
No one, however, who will fairly weigh the amount of valuable 
work done by Mr. Salter, and the large contributions he has made 
to our knowledge of the paleozoic rocks and the early life-forms 
- which they contain, will deny that a man of such ability deserved 
some recognition in the way of pension from Government ; and it is 
sincerely to be hoped that Mrs. Salter, with her seven children, may 
at least be granted some small share of the Royal bounty, as some 
acknowledgment of the services rendered to science by her hus- 
band. 
Mr. Salter is buried in Highgate Cemetery, the resting-place of 
several of his fellow-workers in science. 
Ricuarp NatHanieL Rusiner, M.B. Lond., who was well known 
as an enthusiastic labourer in the geology of South Africa, died 
suddenly, at Port Elizabeth, on the 8th of August, 1869. Beginning 
his medical studies under Dr. John Atherstone, of Port Elizabeth, 
his habit of accurate observation was acquired and fostered in com- 
pany with his fellow pupil and friend, Dr. W. G. Atherstone, of 
that town, also known as an ardent and successful geological 
explorer of South Africa, some time in company with the late Mr. 
A. G. Bain, who first worked out and mapped the geology of that 
region. 
In 1854 Dr. Rubidge was requested by the merchants of Port 
Elizabeth to visit and report upon the newly discovered gold-dig- 
gings near Smithfield, in the Orange-River Sovereignty. In com- 
pany with Mr. Paterson he made a careful examination of the spot, 
and found that gold in small quantities was associated with quartz 
in the meridonal set of trap-dykes there intersecting the Dicynodon 
or Karoo beds. In his clear and concise communication of these 
results to the Geological Society of London (Quart. Journ. vol. xi. 
p- 1 &.), Dr. Rubidge mentions a fact that may be of interest in 
connexion with the possible origin of the diamonds that have of late 
been so profusely found in Orange-River territories, namely, that 
in the eastern ranges of the Stormberg, beyond Aliwal, the an- 
thracitic coal of the Karoo beds has been converted into plumbago 
by the voleanic dykes. Hence it is possible that, by further change, 
purer carbon has been elicited from the carbonaceous matter by 
volcanic or metamorphic agency in the Natal ranges, and has been 
brought down in the form of diamond by the rivers, together with 
their common agate gravel, derived from the same igneous and often 
amygdaloidal rocks (see also his letter in the Journ. Geol. Soe. vol. 
xii. p. 237). 
In the same year (1854), at the instance of a Mining Company, 
Dr. Rubidge went to Namaqualand, to report upon its metal-pro- 
ducing capabilities. The results are given by him in the Geological 
Society’s Journ. yol. xiii., a short notice only appearing in the pre- 
vious volume. The gneissic and schistose rocks of this part of 
Western Africa being quite new to him, and full of interesting 
mineralogical characters, afforded a rich field of observation ; and 
he was particularly struck with the probable metamorphic origin of 
