Vol. 56.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. lv 



published in the volumes of our Journal from the first to the fiftieth, 

 and also gave another great series to Canadian and other Societies 

 for a period of more than forty years up to 1898. Many other pub- 

 lications were indebted to him, and he wrote two volumes on the 

 Devonian and Carboniferous Flora for the Geological Survey of 

 Canada, besides works of a more general character. He will always 

 be known in connexion with Eozoon canadense, the organic origin 

 of which he steadily upheld. 



In public life he occupied a conspicuous position, having been 

 appointed Superintendent of Education for Nova Scotia in 1850, and 

 Principal of McGill University, Montreal, five years later. In his 

 38 years' tenure of this latter post he exercised a powerful in- 

 fluence in the promotion of University education throughout the great 

 Dominion, besides doing much other educational work. 



He was successively President of the Royal Society of Canada, 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the 

 British Association, and of the American Geological Society. He 

 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1862 and knighted in 

 1884. His high personal character and his fine presence helped to 

 make him one of the most prominent men in Canada. 1 



George Dowker, elected a Fellow of this Society in 1864, died on 

 September 22nd, 1899. 



It is again my lot to record the death of a very old friend, to 

 whom I have been indebted for much kindness. 



George Dowker was born at Stourmouth in 1828, and educated 

 first at Sandwich Grammar School and then at an agricultural 

 college. He lived for the greater part of his life at Stourmouth,. 

 farming his own estate, devoting much attention to various branches 

 of natural history (including geology) and to the study of local 

 antiquities. He wrote several papers on East Kentish geology, 

 and in later life, after giving up his farms and settling at Ramsgate, 

 he specially interested himself in the subject of later changes of 

 land, coast-erosion, etc., as to which he became an acknowledged 

 authority. His knowledge of botany helped to place him at the head 

 of local observers in East Kent, and his skill with the pencil aided 

 him in this as well as in his geological work. He was also an early 

 user of the camera for geological purposes. 



He was one of the earliest Members of the Geologists' Association, 



1 Some further particulars are given in Geol. Mag. 1899, pp. 575-76. 

 VOL. LVI. / 



