JUTHIYHBOSABY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 



43 



In IS 7- he joined this Society, and at once perceiving the land of 

 promise lying open to the student of the microscopical structure of 

 rocks, he set to work to educate himself in making transparent 

 rock-sections. I well remember his ardour in these early days of 

 his work, and the glee with which he assured me that he had so far 

 perfected his arrangements for rock-slicing and grinding that he 

 was ready to supply me, if I needed them, with sections " as large 

 as slices of bread and butter " ! 



The fruits of this devotion of his well-earned leisure to original 

 research were soon seen in the valuable series of papers on the 

 rocks of his native county, published by Mr. Phillips between IS 75 

 and 1^7^. Taking as the basis of his studies the field-observations 

 of De la Beche, for whose work he always felt and expressed the 

 greatest admiration, he prepared a series of very remarkable 

 monographs, dealing especially with the very heterogeneous group 

 of rocks that had been called "Greenstones." which he clearly 

 showed to include materials of very different origin. 



Mr. Phillips was by no means the man to think that the 

 microscope — valuable as he proved it to be in his studies — ought to 

 supplant all other methods of research ; on the contrary, he seems 

 to hare been always on his guard against permitting a very useful 

 servant, as the microscope undoubtedly is. to become a despotic 

 master. Every one who reads his memoirs must be impressed alike 

 by his many-sidedness and his industry. In his papers on the 

 Cornish rocks were included the results of over sixty complete 

 chemical analyses, which he performed in his own laboratory ; he 

 made many hundreds of slices of the rocks, cutting them in various 

 directions as best suited his purpose, and he visited and revisited 

 the localities till he had satisfied himself, beyond possibility of doubt, 

 of the correctness of his field-observations. 



In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Phillips scarcely did himself full 

 justice. Among the laborious and conscientious details of his obser- 

 vations manv verv valuable generalizations mav be found buried 

 which well deserved to be brought out into greater prominence. 

 His observations upon the paramorphic change of augite into horn- 

 blende, and the various ways in which this change takes place, his 

 recognition of the fact that massive augitic rocks are converted into 

 hornblende-schists, his demonstration that many of the liquid- 

 cavities found in quartz and other minerals are of secondary origin, 

 these were all announced and their suggestiveness fully appre- 

 ciated by this careful and honest worker. His researches among 



