Vol. 58. ] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. iii 
the qualifications of an energetic explorer and a far-sighted 
organizer with those of a patient student of ancient literature ; but 
in this Society he will be best remembered as a close observer of 
natural phenomena, not indisposed to speculate with boldness upon 
their probable cause. LE. W. R.] 
JouN Hopwoop Braxz, who became a Fellow of this Society in 
1868, was born on July 22nd, 1843. After completing his education 
at King’s College, London, he was apprenticed to Mr. R. P. Brereton, 
M.Inst.C.E., under whose directions he was engaged for several 
years in railway-work in Cornwall and South Wales. During his 
engineering experiences, he became interested in geology, and was 
thereby tempted to join the Geological Survey in April, 1868, at a 
time when the staff under Murchison was considerably augmented. 
During the first few years of his official career he was engaged in 
the re-survey of portions of Somerset, along the Mendip and Polden 
Hills, and subsequently at Watchet and Minehead. He was also 
occupied for a time in the first detailed Drift Survey of the area 
north-west of London. Later on he was transferred to Suffolk, to 
survey the country around Stowmarket, and that bordering the sea 
north and south of Lowestoft, whence he proceeded to Yarmouth 
and continued his investigations inland and along the coast as far 
north as Palling in Norfolk, and subsequently around Kast Dereham. 
Much time had been devoted to a careful study of the Forest Bed 
Series, and his published section of the cliffs at Kessingland, 
Pakefield, and Corton (1884) bears evidence of the painstaking 
character of his work. In 1884, Mr. Blake removed to Reading, 
and was for many years occupied in the re-survey (on the 6-inch 
scale) of that neighbourhood, giving especial attention to the Drifts, 
which before had only been partially mapped. A few years ago he 
proceeded to Oxford, from which important and interesting centre 
he laboured with much quiet enthusiasm, until on March 5th, 1901, 
he suddenly and quite unexpectedly succumbed to angina pectoris 
at the age of 57. 
The record of his geological work is chiefly embodied in the 
geological maps of the districts which he surveyed, and in sundry 
Survey Memoirs. He contributed notes to the Geology of East 
Somerset (1876), to the Geology of Stowmarket (1881), the Geology 
of Norwich (1881), and the Geology of London (1889); and he 
personally wrote ‘The Geology of the Country around Kast Dereham” 
(1888) and ‘The Geology of the Country near Yarmouth & 
