1XXX1V PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I9O3, 



fascination of these ideas, but also because they were impressed 

 by his assurance of their material and intellectual utility. The 

 geological education which they received from him, they com- 

 municated in their turn to their own pupils, and rapidly spread the 

 benefits aud influence of Geology far and wide over the economic 

 and intellectual world of their time. 



But we have even a more striking instance nearer home. I do 

 not think that it is too much to assert that no single geologist, 

 whose name adorns the long roll of the past members of this Society, 

 secured at one and the same time so far-reaching an influence 

 upon the spread of geological knowledge at large, so sincere a 

 respect for our science from the Governments of civilized countries, 

 and so kindly a regard and affection for it from the mass of mankind, 

 as Sir Henry De la Beche. And I take it that all this was 

 due to the fact that he, more than any other British geologist 

 before him or after him, had a clear and well-balanced conception 

 of the three functions of geology. He was at once a scientist, a 

 practical man, and an educationalist. 



No one familiar with his ' Geology of Devon & Cornwall/ or with 

 his ' Geological Observer,' but will grant that he was, both from the 

 side of research and theory, a scientist to the backbone. But he 

 was more than a scientist. He was a man whose life-work had 

 convinced him that the useful side of Geology is as important 

 as the intellectual, and indeed of the necessity there is for the 

 constant union of science and practice, or, as he puts it himself, 

 ' Science and practice are not antagonistic, they are mutual aids/ 

 And mainly, perhaps, because of this conviction, he was also a keen 

 educationalist ; for, as he himself expresses it, as ' some reason, 

 right or wrong, is sure to be assigned to every practice, it is most 

 important for those connected with that practice that they should 

 possess the existing knowledge upon which it rests.' 



De la Beche devoted some of the best years of his life to the task 

 of convincing the Government and the people of this country of 

 the importance of the knowledge of the science and practice of 

 Geology and its related sciences to the material and intellectual 

 advancement of the nation. He brought round the Government 

 of the day to his views, and the best minds of his time, from the 

 Prince Consort downward, became his enthusiastic supporters. He 

 created the British National Geological Survey, which has proved 

 itself as beneficial to the advance of pure Geology as it has to the 

 development of the mineral resources of the Kingdom ; while it has 



