THE GEOLOGIST 
AUGUST, 1861. 
SUGGESTIONS ON THE PRACTICAL UTILITY OF A 
COMBINATION OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
By the Editor. 
We all know that whatever we do to do well we must do earnestly. 
It is not a thing taken in hand now and then, by fits and starts, that 
ever reaches the perfection necessary to give it prominence and raise 
it above things ordinary. 
A London society, simply because it is a London society, is not 
therefore composed of more talent than a provincial society ; nor, if 
it be, is that talent necessarily more effectually applied than it would 
be by any other society whatever. But as the metropolis is the centre 
and focus of the English ordinary population, so we think its learned 
societies ought to be the centres and foci of aU the provincial 
societies. By this we do not advocate that the London societies 
should at all control the actions of any of the other societies ; but we 
can not but think that the greatest good would arise from a com- 
bination of all the provincial Geological Societies and Field Clubs 
with that which ought to be their natural head — the London Geolo- 
gists' Association. If the Geological Society itself could be made 
the great centre of attraction, so much the better ; but the exclusive 
VOL. IV. 2 L 
