224 Proceedings of the 



quently he contributed to our scientific meetings, I feel that 

 to pass on to the ordinary business of the evening, without one 

 slight tribute to bis memory, or one brief word of grateful re- 

 membrance, would be little in accordance with the feelings 

 which, I am persuaded, are now uppermost in the minds of all 

 present. It is not indeed in the power of an individual like 

 myself to add to the world-wide fame of the friend and fellow- 

 member we now deplore. As long as science is cultivated will 

 his name stand forth as a landmark, and to the just apprecia- 

 tion of an admiring world do I leave his reputation ; but it is 

 as a member (alas ! how lately an active and working member) 

 of this Society that I would think of him ; and whether we 

 regard him as an industrious attendant of our meetings, or the 

 one who more often contributed by his valuable papers to the 

 reputation of our Society, he is equally entitled to that poor 

 meed of praise which I would now endeavour, in your name, 

 to offer to his lamented memory. My friend Dr Smith has 

 put into my hands a list of the various papers which, during 

 the last several years, indeed since 1848, he contributed to 

 this Society ; and whether we regard their number, or the in- 

 teresting nature of those communications themselves, I fear 

 we shall look long, if not in vain, among our numbers for his 

 equal and successor. I shall not, gentlemen, attempt any 

 analysis of the valuable papers there alluded to ; most of them 

 have been published, and all have been duly recorded in the 

 annals of this Society ; but I think you will dwell now with 

 peculiar interest on the remarkable words which concluded his 

 address to us in 1854, on resigning his seat as one of our Pre- 

 sidents, and in which he alluded, in the following beautiful 

 language, to the bereavement which men and philosophers had 

 just then sustained in the death of our late beloved member 

 Edward Forbes : — " I trusted," says he, " to have had the hon- 

 our of resigning this chair to a gentleman who, fifteen years 

 ago, was one of the most active and zealous members of the 

 Royal Physical Society, and who had since that time achieved 

 for himself, in natural science in general, and in geology in 

 particular, a reputation co-extensive with the civilized world. 

 But alas ! death reigns ! This distinguished man, in the full 

 blow of his fame, and in the mature prime of vigorous man- 



