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



to all who served under him, whose kindliness and encouragement 

 to the] young surveyor were so marked that his visits of inspection 

 were looked forward to not as a mere matter of business, but as an 

 intellectual treat and as a personal pleasure. 



The work of the Geological Survey is such that to a great extent 

 its officers must perforce become their own teachers : they have to 

 find out much for themselves, as in other pursuits of active life, and 

 this, along with a somewhat solitary existence, sometimes entails a 

 certain amount of despondence. Though not much given that way 

 myself, yet I began at one time to feel it beyond my power to make 

 out the work entrusted to me. This occurred on my first acquaint- 

 ance with that peculiar deposit the Clay-with-nints, which would 

 not fit in with what I had been taught was right and proper, but 

 led me to differ from my friends, a discussion with whom, however, 

 soon lifted me out of the slough of despond and led to a har- 

 monious result. The world has progressed since then. No geologist 

 is now troubled about that or any other like deposit, but can readily 

 explain their peculiarities. 



So much for personal matters, for alluding to which please for- 

 give me. When I come to look at the great subjects in which 

 notable advance has been made within my time, I find it is less a case 

 of advance than of absolute creation, a case of the birth and growth 

 of new ideas rather than of the improvement of old ones. 



Let us look first to Petrology. Really that branch of science did 

 not exist at the time when I was a young student. The classic 

 paper of Sorby, by a long way our oldest living Wollaston Medallist, 

 whom we rejoice to have still among us and still an energetic 

 worker in the field of science, was not read to the Society until 

 some months after I had joined the Geological Survey and not 

 published until the following year. In this, as in other cases, new 

 ideas need time to fructify, and the bearing of this work on the 

 study of rocks had to be thought out. British Petrology is a product 

 of the latter part of this century. 



Before the time heralded by Sorby the microscope had been 

 applied to geological purposes only in a very partial manner. One 

 may say, indeed, that the variety of our species Homo petrologicus 

 had not arisen ; now it is well established, numerous, and fertile. 



