MY DEAR SIR,

I ONLY fulfil a gratifying duty in dedicating to you the present Essay, which owes its existence principally to your favourable opinion of my ability to discharge the trust confided to me.

To have been thus selected for such a service, is a distinction which I prize, as one of the most honourable results of my devotion of many years to the study of the mineral structure of the Earth. I fear, however, that your estimate of my qualifications has been raised above my deserts, by your affectionate regard for the University, with which it has been our common happiness to be so long connected.

Whatever other results may have attended my public exertions in this place, I assure you that it is a source of much satisfaction to me, to find them thus rewarded by the approbation of a Philosopher, whose attainments placed him in the chair once occupied by Newton, and who is endeared by his urbanity to all, who have ever enjoyed the happiness of communication with him, either as the President of the Royal Society of London, or in that more familiar intercourse of private friendship to which it has been my privilege to be admitted.

Believe me to remain,
My dear Sir,

Your much obliged and faithful Servant,

WILLIAM BUCKLAND.