4 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. a | 
anxious post of Honorary Secretaries. The success of a Society 
like ours depends greatly on the judgment, zeal, and ee ; 
of its Secretaries, and the gentlemen named have never spared tim 
or trouble i in their efforts to advance our common interests. 
This notice of services rendered brings me naturally to allude to 
the great Joss the Society sustained last year in the removal by ; 
death of our honoured Vice-President, the Rev. William Branwhite 
Clarke, one of the fathers of the Society, and always its firm friend 
and active supporter, When the old Philosophical Society was: 
_ reorganized in 1866 and converted into the Royal Society, Mr 
Clarke, because of his acknowledged eminence as a geologist and 
_ of his scientific services to the Colony, was elected one of the first 
_ Vice-Presidents (the other being the Hon. Edward Deas-Thomson, — 
C.B., afterwards K.C.M.G.), and was re-elected every year to the 
same office. I may remind the members that, by our constitution, j 
the office of President is not elective, but is held by the Governor 
for the time being, so that it was not open to the members to raise 
Mr. Clarke to the higher honour. 
I regret that I am not qualified to be Mr. Clarke’s biogrephall 
for, although I enjoyed his friendship for a quarter of a century, 
_ I have not been sufficiently conversant with his favourite studies, 
or with the modes and results of his investigations, to enable m@ 
to present a fitting picture of his life and labours. But as it ® 
_ customary in Societies like this to place upon the official ey * 
biographical notice of any member who may have taken a leadim 
part in the business of the Society, or in furthering its choc, 
becomes my duty now to perform this service as a tribute to 
memory of our departed friend. 
S: The Rev. W. B. Clarke was born 2nd Tune, 1798, in the co 
ee of Suffolk, England. After the usual preliminary educstio® 
_— Gntered the University of Cambridge in 1817, and in due cow 
took its degrees of B.A. and M.A. A taste for geology seems 
eh oat been early developed, and while at Cambridge he att 
_ the lectures of Professor Sedgwick and Dr. E. Clarke. In 
he took holy orders, and after a time he was fortunate in ok 
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