266 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCK LAND. 
[CH. X. 
would doubtless long before have been paid to him 
but for the frequency of his election to office in that 
society.” 
In his reply to the address of the President, the Dean 
used expressions such as could only be uttered by a 
geologist convinced of the grand destiny of his science, 
and conscious of his own right to be remembered among 
the authors of discoveries whose names are inscribed on 
the annals of the physical history of the globe. 
“ How vast are the requirements of this our own master 
science, geology, with such manifold subordinates ! ” said 
the Dean. “ What a mighty miracle is the earth which it 
is our province and privilege to investigate ! How highly 
calculated is the study of its structure to awaken many 
of the most exalted feelings of our spiritual nature— 
feelings kindred to those of which original first discoverers 
of the laws and principles that govern the material world 
must occasionally be conscious—feelings of grateful and 
humble admiration of the Great Author of all created 
things, which exalt us in the scale of beings, and which I 
once experienced when, standing on the highest summit 
of the Mcndip Hills, at the close of an elaborate investi¬ 
gation of the structure of the surrounding country, I 
recollected that I was the first individual of the human 
race to whom it had been permitted to unravel the 
structure and record the history of that portion of the 
works of God that lay within the horizon then around 
me. 
“ It has been the high privilege of our time which our 
successors cannot enjoy to be the pioneers of a great and 
comprehensive master science ; and wherever we have 
pushed forward our original discoveries, these discoveries 
will have indelibly inscribed our names on the annals of 
the physical history of the globe. We have established 
landmarks and fixed physical and chronological horizons, 
