Yol. 59.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 1.XXV 



of Mineralogy and Geology must not be pressed too far, nor should 

 it be allowed to give to the whole of Geology that dominant mine- 

 ralogical colour in which it is often erroneously supposed to be 

 steeped. It is impossible to over-estimate the advantages which have 

 accrued to the science of Geology by its association with Mineralogy, 

 But that association is an alliance and not a conquest. Geology is 

 not a province of Mineralogy, but an empire in its own right, and 

 between it and that of Chemistry, Mineralogy is, as it were, a kind 

 of buffer-kingdom having alliances with both. 



But if Geology owes much to its alliance with Mineralogy, 

 Mineralogy has benefited by that alliance to quite as great an 

 extent. Not only have all the minerals their home and habitat in 

 the rock-formations, but the mineralogist owes to the geologist all 

 that he knows of their association and distribution. In no branch 

 of our science has Mineralogy aided us more than in that of 

 Petrology, which has made such marvellous strides during the past 

 generation ; but that debt of obligation has been well repaid. To 

 the petrologist is owing the discovery of the special association of 

 the minerals in the igneous rocks, their relative order of generation, 

 and their mutual interferences; and following upon this he has 

 made known hosts of unexpected data rich in fascinating problems, 

 opening out a new world of speculation and research both for the 

 mineralogist and for the chemist. 



Geology and Biology. — But if Geology owes the first suggestion of 

 the geological formations and their individualization to Mineralogy, 

 she has received benefits of as long standing and of as great a moment 

 from Biology and biologists. The solid foundations of the palseonto- 

 logical side of Geology were laid by the Continental biologists 

 ranging from Steno to Cuvier, simultaneously with the discovery 

 and the working out of the order of the geological formations. 

 Nothing in the history of the growth of Geology so astonished 

 mankind, or so effectually aided in lifting and dispersing the dark 

 cloud of obloquy and neglect which hid from the world the mag- 

 nitude of the results attained by the early geologists, as the demon- 

 stration by the biologist that the extinct organic remains collected 

 from the geological formations were identical in structure with 

 creatures living upon the earth at the present day, and that all these 

 fossil forms fell naturally into a place in the accepted biological 

 classifications. At every successive stage in the progress of strati- 

 graphy since that time, the geologist has been similarly indebted to 



