12 
REPORT OF THE 
scientific periodicals and publications subscribed for by tbe 
Society, and of the transactions of various learned societies 
which in most cases are presented to the Library. 
Several valuable works have also been added to the reference 
Library of the Greological department. 
In accordance with a resolution of the Council an attempt 
is being made to induce the Government to grant copies of the 
memoirs and other publications of the Geological Survey of 
the United Kingdom. 
Obituary. —The Society has this year lost one of its honorary 
members, Ur. Augustus Voelcker, F.E.S., who died on the 5th 
of December. 
This eminent chemist was born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 
1823, and educated at Gottingen. In 1849 he was appointed 
assistant to Professor Johnston at Edinburgh, and in 1852 
professor of chemistry at the Eoyal Agricultural College, 
Cirencester. 
This post he resigned in 1862 for the professorship of 
chemistry offered to him by the Eoyal Agricultural Society 
of England. 
Dr. Yoelcker’s name is well known to practical agriculturalists 
as well as to scientific men; a great advance in the science of 
agricultural chemistry has been made by his solid, useful and 
unostentatious work, the nature and value of which may be 
judged from his numerous papers in the Journal of the Eoyal 
Agricultural Society, Journal of the Chemical Society, &c. 
The immense importance of the application of chemistry to the 
cultivation of the soil need not here be dwelt upon. The 
words of Dean Swift may be well applied to Dr. Ycelcker 
that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of 
grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew 
before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more 
essential service to his country than the whole race of 
“politicians put together.’’ 
The Society has also to mourn the loss of the Eev. M. E. 
Bresher, for upwards of 25 years the respected Yicar of St. 
Martin’s, Coney street, in this city. Mr. Bresher was a 
