Grammar School, Lichfield. In 1858 he was appointed Warden and Professor of Classical Literature and Geology in Queen's College, Birmingham. In 1862 he was presented by the Lord Chancellor to the Rectory of Mellis, Suffolk, which he exchanged in 1867 for the Vicarage of St. John's, Bethnal Green. On the 21st September, 1868 he suddenly died whilst residing in the midst of his family circle; his removal to London, and his untiring exertions among the poor of Bethnal Green, probably, materially abridged his life. He was emphatically a hard worker both as clergyman and man of science.
Mr. Cumming was married in 1836, to Agnes, youngest daughter of J. H. Peckham, Esq., who survives him with a family of four sons and two daughters.
Mr. Cumming was the author of a ' History of the Isle of Man,' and of papers on " The Geology of the Isle of Man," " The Tertiaries of the Moray Frith," " The Geology of the Calf of Man," and " The Superior Limits of the Glacial Deposits in the Isle of Man," which are published in our Journal. He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1846.
" A great reform in geological speculation seems now to have become necessary."
"It is quite certain that a great mistake has been made, — that British popular geology at the present time is in direct opposition to the principles of Natural Philosophy"*.
In reviewing the course of geological thought during the past year, for the purpose of discovering those matters to which I might most fitly direct your attention in the Address which it now becomes my duty to deliver from the Presidential Chair, the two somewhat alarming sentences which I have just read, and which occur in an able and interesting essay by an eminent natural philosopher, rose into such prominence before my mind that they eclipsed everything else.
It surely is a matter of paramount importance for the British geologists (some of them very popular geologists too) here in solemn annual session assembled, to inquire whether the severe judgment thus passed upon them by so high an authority as Sir William Thomson is one to which they must plead guilty sans phrase, or whether they are prepared to say " not guilty," and appeal for a reversal of the sentence to that higher court of educated scientific opinion to which we are all amenable.
As your attorney-general for the time being, I thought I could not do better than get up the case with a view of advising you. It is true that the charges brought forward by the other side involve the consideration of matters quite foreign to the pursuits with which I am ordinarily occupied ; but in that respect I am only in the position which is, nine times out of ten, occupied by counsel, who nevertheless contrive to gain their causes, mainly by force of mother-
- On Geological Time. By Sir W. Thomson, LL.D. Transactions of the
Geological Society of Glasgow, vol. iii.
