Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 1.djvu/5



Members of the Geological Society, to whom the arrangement of its papers for publication has been deputed, conceive that it may be satisfactory to prefix to the First Volume of the Society's Transactions a short account of the origin and progress of the Institution, and some cursory remarks on the objects which its plan embraces.

The few individuals, who were the founders of the Society, met in consequence of a desire of communicating to each other the result of their observations, and of examining how far the opinions maintained by the writers on Geology were in conformity with the facts presented by nature. They likewise hoped, that a new impulse might, through their exertions, be given to this science; and with this view, shortly after their establishment, they drew up and distributed a series of inquiries, calculated in their opinion to excite a greater degree of attention to this important study, than it had yet received in this country; and to serve as a guide to the geological traveller, by pointing out some of the various objects, which it is his province to examine.