Yol. YIL] 
[Part I. 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
YORKSHIRE 
GEOLOGICAL AND POLYTECHNIC SOCIETY 
Edited by JAMES TV. DAVIS, F.L.S., F.G.S. 
1878. 
ADDRESS BY LORD HOUGHTON, D.C.L., F.R.S., &c, &c, 
VICE-PRESIDENT. 
The Chairman said : — It occurred to me sometimes, but 
not often, in my parliamentary life, to find a man so full of 
his knowledge that he was confused and almost unable to 
express it; and it also occurred to me sometimes to find a 
man with very little knowledge able to use it so adroitly 
as to make people believe that he knew a great deal. 
But as I do not wish to place myself, or am unable 
to place myself, in one of these positions, and am un- 
willing to place myself in the other, the words I have to 
say will be very few, because of the main subjects of this 
society I know very little, and am here rather to learn than 
to teach. In my younger days the science of geology was 
in its commencement, and I remember the sensation pro- 
duced in all literary and scientific circles in Yorkshire by 
the appearance of the work of our excellent countryman 
Mr. Phillips. It was almost a revelation of a new science 
to many ingenious and inquiring minds, and by all York- 
shiremen was regarded as the discovery of a mine of infinite 
i 
