Yol. 56.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. lxix 



This leads me to notice the great advance of geological work in the 

 Western Continent, especially among our colleagues in the United 

 States. Formerly there was no Geological Society in that great 

 domain, nor any Journal specially devoted to Geology. Now there 

 are two of each of these. Formerly, too, only a few States had a 

 Geological Survey, now the majority have come to appreciate the 

 advantage of such an institution. Moreover, the central Government 

 has carried out a series of surveys, for more or less special purposes 

 or for particular regions, the results of which have been given to the 

 world in bulky volumes, some with illustrative atlases. These surveys 

 have culminated in the great national work now presided over by 

 one of our Bigsby Medallists, C. D. Walcott, the Bulletins, Eeports, 

 Monographs, and other publications of which form of themselves 

 a goodly geological library, well printed and splendidly illustrated, 

 containing many memoirs that are of far more than local interest. 



We are, indeed, almost overwhelmed by the flood of geological 

 literature poured in upon us from various public sources in the 

 United States, the liberality and generosity of whose government 

 departments contrast strongly with the extreme economy, to use 

 no harsher term, of our own Government. It seems unfair that the 

 work of the zealous officers of our Geological Survey should suffer, 

 first, from the rather parsimonious way in which it has usually been 

 printed, and, secondly, from the fairly successful endeavour to keep 

 it from being too widely circulated, or even known. Perhaps some 

 distant successor in this chair may be able to chronicle a great 

 advance in this matter in the United Kingdom. The Silurian 

 Memoir to which I have already referred certainly shows a great 

 improvement in printing. 



There is, too, another and still more important matter upon which 

 we may congratulate the United States : that is, on the men whom 

 they have turned out, on the increase in their supply of able geologists. 

 To one of the ablest exponents of American geology the Council of 

 this Society have just given the highest award which it is in their 

 power to bestow, the Wollaston Medal. 



Underground Geology generally. 



From the foregoing slight sketch it is clear that in order to deal 

 with the advance in the leading subjects of geological knowledge 

 during even the term of my own geological life several Addresses 

 would be needed, and that these ought to be given by several indi- 

 viduals, experts respectively in the various matters to which I have 



