[The Geological Society of London.] Fifty-year run of 153 numbers of 'The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society', from no.1, including contributions from leading geologists including T. H. Huxley, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison

A substantial run of a historic scientific journal, at a significant period in its history, with the theory of Evolution occasioning an upheaval of received ideas. 153 numbers, dating from the first number of 1 Feb. 1845 to that of 1 Nov. 1901, with a single subsequent number (Feb. 1911). (Numbers were generally arranged in yearly 'Volumes', with occasional additional numbers (for example 120* and 200a and 200b). All issues 8vo, with numbers of pages varying from around 60 to upwards of 20. The full number and date range are as follows: 1-4 [1 Feb. 1845 to 1 Nov. 1845], 9 [1 Feb. 1847], 11 [1 Aug. 1847], 12 [1 Nov. 1847], 31 [1 Aug. 1852], 57-69 [1 Feb. 1859 to 1 Feb. 1862], 74-77 [1 May 1863 to 1 Feb. 1864], 80-156 [1 Nov. 1864 to 1 Nov. 1883], 169-180 [1 Feb. 1887 to 1 Nov. 1889], 193-228 [1 Feb. 1893 to 1 Nov. 1901], 265 [Feb. 1911]. The editor of the first number (1845) is 'The Vice-Secretary of the Geological Society'; and that of the last (1911) is 'The Assistant-Secretary'. Numerous plates to various volumes, comprising engraved and photographic illustrations, hand-coloured maps and tables, many of them fold-outs, and some hand coloured; with similar illustrative material in text. (As an example, no.12 contains a coloured fold-out map, extending to 64cm in length, of 'Comparative Sections in the London and Hampshire Tertiary Systems | illustrative of the relative range and synchronism of the strata', and - on a page that opens out to 54 x 72cm - an engraved 'Stratigraphical Section, from Atherfield Point to Black-Gang-Chine, in the Isle of Wight, by William Henry Fitton, M.D., F.R.S., &c.' with an elaborate table of 'Distribution of the Fossils at present known in this section of the Lower Greenland. - Oct. 1847'; and no.31 contains fifteen plates.) Around three-quarters of the collection in good condition, with many numbers unopened; the remaining quarter worn and aged, with leave occasional outer leaves loose (apart from the first number, which has the front cover loose and lacks the advertisements and back cover. A few of the numbers with prelims blind stamped with the crest of Christ College Canterbury. From the very first paper in the first number of 1845 - 'Professor Sedgwick [Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873)] on the older Palaeozoic Rocks of North Wales' - the present run is filled with contributions by eminent geologist, both British and foreign. (No.88, 1 Nov. 1866, has 33 papers contributed in its 'Proceedings'.) Among the twenty other contributors to the first number are 'Mr. Lyell [Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875)] on the Cretaceous Strata of New Jersey' and 'Mr. Murchison [Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871)] and M. de Verneuil on the Permian System as developed in Russia'. No.1 also contains contributions by professors Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), Edward Forbes (1815-1854) and Thomas Bell (1792-1880); Edward William Binney (1812-1882). Other contributors include: Sir Philip Grey Egerton (1806-1881); Admiral Henry Wolseley Bayfield (1795-1885); William Conybeare (1787-1857); Sir Joseph Prestwich (1812-1896); Professor Robert Harkness (1816-1878); Sir John William Dawson (1820-1899); William Nicol (1770-1851); John William Salter (1820-1869); Andrew Leith Adams (1827-1882); Peter Martin Duncan (1824-1891); John Leckenby (1814-1877); Rev. David Honeyman (1817-1889); Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen (1834-1923); Sir Charles Elliot (1801-1875), on 'the Recent Earthquake at St. Helena'; Sir Edwin Ray Lankester (1847-1929); Rev. Henry William Crosskey (1826-1893); Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie (1815-1897); Robert John Lechmere Guppy (1836-1916); George Wareing Omerod (1810-1891); William Boyd Dawkins (1837-1929); 'The Earl of Selkirk on some Sea-water-level Marks on the Coast of Sweden'; 'The Duke of Argyll on a Post-Tertiary Lignite, or Peat-Bed, in the District of Kintyre, Argyllshire'; Henry Benjamin Medlicott (1829-1905); Sir Johann Franz ['Julius'] von Haast (1822-1887); Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay (1814-1891); 'Baron de Zigno on the Jurassic Flora'; 'Signor Gemmellaro on the Volcanic Cones of Paternó and Motta'; John Whitaker Hulke (1830-1895); Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan (1797-1879); John Clarke Hawkshaw (1841-1921); Major-General Alfred Wilks Drayson (1827-1901); Prof. Henri Coquand (1813-1881); Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913); Harry Govier Seeley (1839-1909); Henry Woodward (1832-1921); Richard Lydekker (1849-1915); Professor Thomas McKenny Hughes (1832-1917); Prof. Bundjiro Koto (1856-1935); Archibald Geikie (1835-1924); Professor William Johnson Sollas (1849-1936); Professor John Walter Gregory (1864-1932); Professor Thomas George Bonney (1833-1923); Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David (1858-1934); Ananda Kentish Coomaraswam (1877-1947) ('Mr. A. K. Coomára-Swámy on Ceylon Rocks and Graphite'); Professor Joseph William Winthrop Spencer (1851-1921); Theodore Groom (1863-1943); William Harper Twelvetrees (1848-1919); James Murdoch Geikie (1839-1915); Sir Clement le Neve Foster (1841-1904); Alfred John Jukes-Brown (1851-1914); Edwin Tulley Newton (1840-1930); Vice-Admiral Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt (1811-1888); Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth (1842-1923); Thomas Crosbee Cantrill (1867-1931); Joseph Paxson Iddings (1857-1920); Professor Emanuel Kayser (1845-1927). The journal is international in scope. For example, the 'Miscellaneous' section of no.62 (1 May 1860) consists of the following seven items: 'Sturr. Kössen Strata of Hungary', 'Kenngott and Haidinger. Hoernesite', 'Kulezycki. Geology of Tahiti', 'Fr. von Hauer. Triassic Cephalopoda from Hallstatt', 'J. C. Hörbye. Glacial Erosion in Norway', 'Tschermak. Greenstones and their Secondary Minerals', 'Rolle. Lignite of Schönstein, Syria'; Rev. Osmond Fisher (1817-1914). Several papers reflect the influence of Charles Darwin, for example no.117 (2 Feb. 1874): 'New Facts bearing on the Inquiry concerning Forms intermediate between Birds and Reptiles. By Henry Woodward, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., British Museum.' Among the 'Notices of New Books' in vol.4 is a review by 'D. T. A.' of 'Mr. Darwin on Volcanic Islands'. The run also contains numerous contributions by Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) between 1859 and 1887: no.59 (1 Aug. 1859): 'Prof. T. H. Huxley on the Stagonolepis Robertsoni of the Elgin Sandstone'; no.60 (1 Nov. 1859): 'Professor T. H. Huxley on a New Species of Dicynodon (D. Murrayi) from near Colesburg, South Africa'; no.60* (1 Feb. 1860), four papers; no.65 (1Feb. 1861), one paper; no.66 (1 May 1861), one paper; no.68 (1 Aug. 1861), one paper 'on some Reptilian Remains from N. W. Bengal'; no.80 (1 Nov. 1864), one paper titled 'Prof. T. H. Huxley on the Cetacean Fossil termed "Ziphius" by Cuvier, with a Notice of a New Species [...]'; no.88 (1 Feb. 1867), paper titled 'Prof. T. H. Huxley on some Remains of large Dinosaurian Reptiles from the Stormberg Mountains, South Africa'; no.90 (1 May 1867), paper titled 'Prof. T. H. Huxley on a New Specimen of Telerpeton Elginense'; no.98 (1 May 1869), 1 paper; no.99 (1 Aug. 1869), 1 paper; no.101(1 Feb. 1870), 3 papers; no.123 (2 Aug. 1875), 1 paper; no.172 (1 Nov. 1887), 1 paper. There are also contributions from the early climate change proponent Dr James Croll (1821-1890): no.178 (1 May 1889): 'Dr. James Croll on prevailing Misconceptions regarding the Evidence which we ought to expect of former Glacial Periods'. There only appear to be three contributions by women: no.180 (1 Nov. 1889): 'Miss Donald ['of Stanwix'] on some new Species of Carboniferous Gasteropoda'; no.193 (1 Feb. 1893), Maria M. Ogilvie: 'Miss Ogilvie on the Geology of the Wengen and St. Cassian Strata in Southern Tyrol'; no.207 (1 Aug. 1896): 'Miss Aston and Prof. Bonney on an Alpine Nickel-bearing Serpentine, with Fulgurites'.