Opening Address by the President of the Society, Archibald Geikie. Session 1869-70. [Thirty-Sixth Anniversary Meeting Thursday 4th November 1869

Abstract

In accordance with custom it falls to me to open the business of a new Session of our Society with a brief address. In doing so I would first congratulate you on the progress which we have made during the Session that is past, on the augmentation of our numbers, and on the increased value of the communications which have been read before the Society. These successes ought to encourage us to renewed activity. Without any ambitious aims, we may yet reasonably hope to gather under our roof a goodly proportion of those who in Edinburgh take an interest in geology, and are willing to do something to help its progress. On a former occasion I took the opportunity of pressing upon the Society the advantage of steady, honest, scientific work, even of the humblest kind. In furtherance of this desirable activity, I wish at present to direct your attention to three special branches of inquiry, to which, as it appears to me, our energies may be turned, to the advantage not only of the labourers but of the science at large. I. Scope of Palæontology. —Although not myself a palæontologist, and desiring therefore to speak with becoming diffidence on a branch of science which I have not made a special subject of study, I am often led to think that palæontology has not yet rendered to geology all the service which may fairly be claimed from it. At present that branch of science is little more than a classification and