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.