LnonsAir society of loxdox. 



XXV 



most zealous founders of the British School of Geology. His 

 early labours, commencing more than half a century ago, on the 

 geology of Hastings and its neighbourhood, and these, together 

 with his works on the strata intervening between the chalk and 

 oolite in the South-east of England and in the Isle of Wight, pub- 

 lished as they were at an early period in the history of the science, 

 speedily raised Dr. Fitton to a European reputation, which was 

 not only maintained, but enhanced by his subsequent career. 



In 1827 he became President of the Geological Society, in which 

 capacity he was the first to set the laudable and useful example, 

 since so amply and ably followed by his successors, of giving an 

 annual resume of the general progress of the science. In 1852 

 he received the T^Tollaston Medal, presented to him by the Society 

 for his eminent scientific services. Besides his strictly scientific 

 publications, Dr. Fitton contributed several articles on the early 

 history of geology to the ' Quart erlyBeview ' and other periodicals. 



John Stevens Henslow. As I feel that it would be impossible 

 for me to do equal justice to the subject of the following notice, 

 or to express in anything like such adequate terms what is due to 

 the memory of Professor Henslow, I have thought it better, with 

 the due permission, to insert in the records of the Linnean So- 

 ciety, the eloquent and complete account of his life and labours 

 contained in the pages of the ' Gardeners' Chronicle ' for June 

 1, 8, and 15, 1861. 



"There are few men whose loss will be more generally deplored, 

 whether as a clergyman or as a man of science, than the subject 

 of this notice ; nor are these his only claims to be regarded as 

 a benefactor of his race, for there are few whose personal influence 

 for good on the social, moral, and religious characters of those 

 with whom he has been associated or laboured, has been so deeply 

 felt or so gratefully acknowledged. To give even a sketch of 

 the varied attainments and personal qualifications that were so 

 blended in Prof. Henslow as to render him at once the most popular 

 and useful man of science of his day, is quite impossible here ; for 

 they depended on a combination of rare qualities of head and heart ; 

 each natural, but all well trained and conscientiously cultivated by 

 their possessor during a long period of his life. Amongst them, 

 however, should be mentioned some personal and other features, 

 which, as being in a great measure due to temperament and mental 

 endowment, were inherent and characteristic of all periods of his 

 life : these were a sense of truth and fair play, so instinctive, that 

 deception or even reticence when the cause of truth was at stake 



