The centenary of the foundation of the Geological Society of London, celebrated last year, was a genuine festival in the scientific world. Though geology had its teachers and searchers before 1807 (Hutton and Werner, and the Neptunian and Plutonic schools, with their theories as to the origin of rocks on the one hand by marine deposit, or on the other by igneous agency, flourished before that date), yet it is true that the adequate conception of the problems of geology and the proper use of accurate observations and of judicious theory based on those observations, in relation to the problems of geology, coincided with the foundation of the society. It was not the first “special” scientific society founded in London; there was already the Linnean Society (founded in 1788) for the cultivation of zoology and botany. Yet it incurred the displeasure of the worthy president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, who at first joined it, and then withdrew from it, when, in 1809, it ceased to be a dining-club, meeting at a London tavern, and acquired rooms of its own at No. 4, Garden-court, Temple. Apparently there was a notion in those days that the “Royal Society for the promotion of Natural Knowledge,” founded in 1662, should exercise a sort of paternal control over any society formed for the special promotion of one branch of science. Independence has, however, been found to be the healthiest condition, and we now have not only the Linnean and the Geological, but the Zoological, the Chemical, and the Physical Societies, vigorous and important corporations, publishing their “Transactions,” and meeting for discussion. There is, it is true, a danger that the Royal Society may be left eventually, owing to these independent establishments, in the sole possession and control of the doctors and the engineers. It is a curious fact that the word “physiology,” which in Cicero’s time (he says “Physiologia naturÆ ratio”) and in the Middle Ages meant what we now call “natural history,” has been abandoned by other sciences, and appropriated by the medical men. In England, but not abroad, the doctors have even usurped the words “physician” and “physic.” In France, on the contrary, and more correctly, Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Crooks are called distinguished “physicians,” and the theory of the luminiferous ether is “physic.”

The Geological Society issued its first volume of Transactions in 1811. The origin of the society is there stated to be due to “the desire of its founders to communicate to each other the results of their observations, and to examine how far the opinions maintained by the writers on geology are in conformity with the facts presented by nature.” A more exact and intelligible statement of the attitude of scientific men, then and now, could not be formulated.

There are few, if any, among us now who knew many of the original members of the Geological Society, but I remember meeting, when I was a youth, Leonard Horner, the first secretary of the society, and father-in-law of Sir Charles Lyell. I also knew Dr. Peter Mark Roget, an original member, who was the oldest fellow of the Royal Society when he died in 1869. Sir Henry Holland, the father of the present Lord Knutsford, became a member in 1809, and published a paper on the rock-salt district in the first volume. He was an eminent medical man, and a great traveller. He wrote, amongst other things, upon the turquoise mines of Persia and upon longevity. He was a friend of my father’s, and I had the advantage of talking the latter subject over with him before I wrote a little book on “Comparative Longevity” in 1869.

It was not until 1825 that the Geological Society obtained a charter, and was incorporated. Two great names appear in the first council of the newly-incorporated society—Murchison and Lyell. Murchison became the Director of the Geological Survey, and as “Sir Roderick” was a familiar and picturesque figure in the scientific world of the second and third quarters of last century. He wore an Inverness cape and a tall hat with a large and much-curled brim, an old-fashioned stock, and a tail-coat. In his hand he always grasped a large, handsome cane, with which he expressed his applause during the discussions at the society, or emphasised his own remarks. He was fond of alluding to himself as “an old soldier of the hammer,” and almost always entered into a discussion with these words, “It is now, sir, a quarter of a century since, in company with my illustrious friend, Sir Somebody Something, I had the privilege and pleasure of showing that”—whatever it might be. Discussions at the Geological in the sixties and seventies were real, animated, almost violent discussions. I need hardly say that they were perfectly delightful. Godwin Austen was a fine, incisive speaker, who seemed ready to back his statements and views with his fists, if need be. Lyell, the greatest of all, was most modest, and almost timid in pressing an opinion, but full of personal experience and minute knowledge of facts. John Phillips, the nephew of the father of English geology, William Smith, was mellifluous and persuasive; Jukes, robust and defiant; Huxley (secretary and then president), clear, trenchant, and uncompromising. I remember an occasion when Sir Roderick, with tears in his voice, if not in his eyes, declared he would not stay in the room to hear that fossil fishes were discovered in his own special domain—the Silurian rocks, where he had long since shown that they did not occur—and he left the meeting. Many Silurian fishes have now been found, but we all loved Sir Roderick for the heart and feeling which he threw into his work and his public utterances.

The aim of geology is to describe accurately the long succession of changes in the crust of “this cooling cinder,” the earth, and to assign them in an orderly way to their causes. Hence, it calls upon nearly all other branches of science for help—astronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology. At the same time, it is essentially a recreative pursuit, for, as Mr. Horace Woodward says in his History of the Geological Society of London—published by the society—“the fulness of the science can never be attained without the vivifying influence of mountain and moor, of valley and sea coast.” It is owing to this that the soldiers of the hammer, from Murchison, Sedgwick, Lyell, Ramsay, Etheridge, Salter, onwards to the present generation of “stone-crackers,” are amongst the happiest, most genial, and mentally alert of our men of science.

That word “stone-cracker” I take from a letter addressed to me when I was a boy of twelve by the Rev. J. S. Henslow, Professor of Mineralogy and later of Botany at Cambridge, founder, with Adam Sedgwick, the great Woodwardian Professor of Geology, of the now flourishing Cambridge Philosophical Society, and the teacher, guide, and fateful friend of Charles Darwin. It was he who sent Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle. I had met this wonderful old naturalist at Felixstowe when exploring the marshes for rare plants and insects with my father. My father was a first-rate man at a country walk, and could tell you all the time about the flowers, flies, stones, and bones you might encounter. But Henslow surpassed him. I remember to this day nearly every word Henslow said, and everything he did on that memorable afternoon nearly fifty years ago. Amongst other things he explained how the rough flint implements recently discovered in river gravels—proving man’s great antiquity—could be shown to owe their shape to blows, each blow causing a “conchoidal” fracture. And he struck with his hammer some very large flints which were lying in a heap in the meadow, and produced the most perfect dome-like broken surface or bulb of percussion. He promised to give me a real palÆolithic flint implement and also a geological hammer. The letter which reached me later in London ran as follows: “Dear incipient Stonecracker—Enclosed you will find a draft for 10s. with which, at the shop in Newgate-street, you can obtain a geological hammer identical in all respects with my own.... In a separate parcel I send you a flint implement which I obtained myself in the gravel pit at St. Acheuil....” The hammer, the flint-axe, and the letter are to this day treasured with deep affection and reverence for the giver, by the boy who was thus so kindly initiated in the “art and mystery” of Stone-crackers. Henslow died in 1861 at the age of 65. His daughter was the first wife of Sir Joseph Hooker, the great botanist and traveller, who celebrated his ninetieth birthday in July, 1907, and is still in full mental and bodily health and vigour.