4 
Mr. Hare, Mr. Samuel Sniitli, Mr. Price, Mr. Thomas Butler, 
Mr. VVm. Hey, Mr. S. D. Martin, Rev. R. W. Hamilton, 
Mr. W. West, Mr. J. O. Marcli, Mr. N. P. Simes, Mr. W. 
S. Ward, Mr. C. J. Smith, Mr. Benjamin Bbam, Wentworth, 
&c. &c. 
On the table were a number of specimens of recent fishes, 
and of fossil fishes, from the Philosophical Society's collec- 
tion, and also of fossil fishes from the collection of Mr. 
Embleton to illustrate Mr. Teale's valuable paper. 
There was also a specimen of Calamites Cannaeformis, 
presented by Godfrey Wentworth, Esq., WooUey Park. 
On the motion of James G. Marshall, Esq., seconded by 
the Rev. S. Sharp, the Rev. DR. HOOK, Vicar of Leeds, 
was invited to take the chair. 
DR. hook's opening SPEECH. 
Dr. Hook complied with the call, took the chair, 
and opened the proceedings as follows : — Gentlemen, 
having been requested by your Committee to preside at the 
West-Riding Geological Society, I have done myself the 
honor of acceding to the request, though I must, without 
any affectation, repeat to you what I said to them, that I 
am conscious of my inability to discharge the duties of the 
office with credit to myself or with satisfaction to you, since 
my acquaintance with Geology is merely such as might be 
expected from any person acquainted with the literature of 
his country, and I speak in the presence of gentlemen who 
have sounded the depths and shoals of the science. But 
thus much I may be permitted to say, that it is a science 
sublime as well as interesting and important ; interesting it 
is to have the mind carried back to the revolutions of those 
distant eras when the seeds were sown, if I may so say, of 
those fields of coal of which we are reaping the harvest 
which ministers a supply to so many human wants, and to 
which we especially owe the prosperity of the district of 
which we are the inhabitants. Of its importance I need 
not speak to practical men ; it is at once admitted by the 
miner, the chemist, the agriculturist, the builder, the 
engineer. Sublime it is, for what can be more sublime to 
the dwellers upon earth than the archaiology of the globe ? 
Gentlemen, you are aware that scarcely half a century has 
elapsed since Geology began to be studied scientifically ; and, 
owing to the crude and conflicting theories of those geolo- 
gists who ventured to theorize before they had collected 
facts or collated the observations of practical men, some 
prejudice for a time was excited against it : but that pre- 
judice is passing away, and the object with Geologists seems 
now to be merely to collect phenomena, to classify and 
