ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 



55 



In attempting such a survey, I of course do not forget that a just 

 idea of so vast a field can scarcely be obtained from any single 

 standpoint ; but I am satisfied that no better vantage-ground could 

 possibly be found for the purpose than that afforded by this Chair. 

 Without for one moment forgetting the workers belonging to other 

 countries or connected with kindred associations, I may claim for 

 this Society that it has ever taken a foremost place in promoting the 

 progress of geological science ; that the initiative in many of its most 

 remarkable advances has been due to our Fellows ; and that all the 

 leading episodes of its short but brilliant history will be found 

 faithfully reflected in our publications. 



It is my purpose to-day to invite your attention to the past and 

 present relations between Geology and the Miner alogical Sciences. 



The geologists of this Society stand in no need of the reminder 

 that " their father was a mineralogist.*' That little band of enthu- 

 siasts who, just eighty years ago, constituted themselves the nucleus of 

 the Geological Society of London were before all things mineralogists; 

 and the initial object of the formation of the Society was a purely 

 mineralogical one, that of securing the publication of Count Bournon's 

 laborious trcatiso on the varied forms assumed by the crystals of 

 calcspar. Little could its original members have anticipated many 

 of tho directions in which the work of the Society was destined to 

 develop itself. 



An examination of the first scries of our ' Transactions,' published 

 between the years 1811 and 1821, will show that all the really 

 valuable and enduring work of the Society, daring this first epoch 

 of its history, was either mineralogical or petrographical. Looking 

 back on that work, we may indeed feel proud of the achievements 

 of these founders of our Society. We find Wollaston engaged in 

 devising his beautiful contrivance for measuring the angles of crystals, 

 and William Phillips illustrating the value of the reflecting goni- 

 ometer by accumulating a great mass of accurate determinations ; 

 we see Whewell, and afterwards Miller, labouring to place on a 

 secure basis the mathematical methods best adapted for the discus- 

 sion of these measurements ; while Brewster and Herschel are 

 steadily feeling their way towards the pregnant generalization that 

 the geometrical forms of crystals are but the outward and visible 

 signs of an inward molecular structure, which becomes clearly mani- 

 fested by its action upon polarized light; at the same time 

 Macculloch, bringing to bear on his studies in the field a vast 

 amount of accurate chemical and mineralogical knowledge, is found 



