Remarks on Volcanoes. 283 



sion as the present, to criticise the labours of this eminent 

 chemist, or to dwell upon those points in which the results 

 of my own humbler inquiries in the same field of research 

 may clash with his. It is sufficient for me to have pointed 

 out to you his memoirs on the subject of the Iceland Vol- 

 canoes, as an important present rendered by chemistry to 

 the sister science of geology ; and as a service, too, which 

 those who turn away with indifference from researches of a 

 more refined nature, lying strictly within the domain of pure 

 chemistry, would be likely to accept as an undeniable evi- 

 dence of the extensive utility of our pursuits. 



It is, indeed, a fortunate circumstance, in more respects 

 than one, when such happy applications of chemical prin- 

 ciples to other departments of natural knowledge are carried 

 out by those of our brethren who had before established 

 their reputation amongst ourselves by researches which 

 chemists, and chemists only, are capable of appreciating. 



No geologist, at least, can feel that he has a right to im- 

 pugn as visionary, conclusions which have been deduced by 

 a philosopher, who had before attained the first rank amongst 

 experimentalists by his profound and intricate investigations 

 into the members of the Cacodyle series ; just as for the 

 same reason no candid mind can fail to pay deference to the 

 suggestions of another of our foreign associates, on questions 

 relating to physiology, agriculture, and the like ; knowing 

 that before that eminent philosopher had turned his atten- 

 tion to these subjects, he had already earned a great name 

 amongst chemists, by the success with which he had grappled 

 with the most difficult problems in organic chemistry ; and 

 by the flood of light which he had shed over a class of bodies 

 before comparatively unattractive, owing to the obscurity 

 which enveloped their real nature, and the absence of those 

 connecting links, the discovery of which by himself, more 

 than perhaps by any other single individual, has shewn that 

 they constitute the parts of one harmonious and unbroken 

 series. — (Dr Daubeny 's Anniversary Address to the Chemical 

 Society of London.) 



