XI 



death of General Sir Henry Godwin, in October, 1884, Robert Austen 

 obtained by Royal licence permission to add the name of Godwin to 

 that of Austen. 



In 1834 Austen went to reside at Ogwell House, near Newton 

 Abbot, Devonshire. Here he received frequent visits from Sedgwick 

 and his other geological friends. No better centre for study could 

 have been selected by the young geologist. The richly fossiliferous 

 Devonian limestones, the outliers of Cretaceous strata, and the 

 Tertiary deposits of Bovey Tracy, were all within easy reach, and as 

 proof of the good use he made of his opportunities it may be men- 

 tioned that De la Beche entrusted to him the construction of portions 

 of the Devonshire map, while Phillips found in the collection of 

 Ogwell House many of the choicest specimens figured in his "Palaeo- 

 zoic Fossils of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset." Between the 

 years 1834 and 1840 a number of valuable papers dealing with the 

 district in the West of England, where he had gone to reside, were 

 read by Robert Austen to the Geological Society, and published in 

 their Proceedings and Transactions. 



Returning to his native county in 1838, Robert Austen, after a 

 brief residence at Shalford House, went to live at Gosden House, 

 and subsequently at Merrow House, both situated near Guildford, 

 At a later date, 1846, he removed to Chilworth Manor, in the same 

 county. Here he was within an easy distance from London, and was 

 able to take an active part in the work and management of the 

 Geological Society. Between the years 1841 and 1876 he was fre- 

 quently a Member of the Council ; in 1843-44, and again in 1853-54, 

 he was Secretary, and between 1865 and 1867 he acted as Foreign 

 Secretary of the Society. Although he was frequently nominated 

 Vice-President, it was a subject of regret to all his geological friends 

 that he could not be induced to accept the Presidency. In 1849 he 

 became a Fellow of the Royal Society. 



Upon Austen's return to his native county of Surrey, he com- 

 menced that series of careful researches on the geology of the South- 

 East of England, the results of which were laid before the Geological 

 Society between the years 1843 and 1853, and did so much to extend 

 oar knowledge of the Weal den, the Neocomian, and the Cretaceous 

 systems. During the same decade he spent much time in yachting, 

 always making use of the opportunities afforded for pursuing his 

 favourite studies, and in these he was encouraged and assisted by his 

 friend and frequent companion Edward Forbes. During these excur- 

 sions he made the observations which were embodied in a series of 

 remarkable and suggestive essays on the valley of the English Channel 

 and the drift of its shores, on the geology of the Channel Islands, the 

 Boulonnais, and other parts of France. Upon Forbes' death in 1854, 

 Austen, acting as his literary executor, completed his two unfinished 



