Rev. Mr Whewell's Address io the Geological Society, 141 



and the award of the Wollaston Medal last year is an evidence how gladly 

 your Council take that method of congratulating the successful cultivators of 

 such studies. I am sure that all who are acquainted with Mr Owen's la- 

 bours will rejoice that we have in this manner marked our sense of his suc- 

 cess. His earlier researches, those for instance on the Nautilus, have been 

 of exceeding use and interest to geologists. And the first part of his de- 

 scription of the fossil mammalia, collected by Mr Darwin in South America, 

 contains matters of the most striking novelty, interest, and importance. We 

 have there the restoration, performed with a consummate skill, such as fitly 

 marks the worthy successor of Hunter and the disciple of Cuvier, of two 

 animals, not only of new genera, but occupying places in the series of animal 

 forms, which are peculiarly instructive. For the one, the Toxodon, connects 

 the Rodentia with the Pachydermata by manifest links, and with the Ceta- 

 cea by more remote resemblances; and thus contributes to the completion of 

 the zoological scale just in the parts where it is weakest and most imperfect: 

 while the other animal, the Macrauchenia, the determination of which is con- 

 sidered by anatomists as an admirable example of the solution of such a prob- 

 lem, appears to be exactly intermediate between the horse and the camel. 

 But this creature is also interesting in another way, since it closely resembles 

 although on a gigantic scale, an animal still existing in that country, and pe- 

 culiar to it, the Llama. Thus, in this, as in some other instances, the types 

 of animal forms which distinguish a certain region on the earth's surface, are 

 clearly reflected to our eyes as we gaze into the past ages of the earth's 

 history, while they are magnified so as to assume what almost appear super- 

 natural dimensions. The Llama, the Capybara, and the Armadillo of South 

 America are seen in colossal forms in the Macrauchenia, the Toxodon, and 

 the Megatherium. I will not omit this occasion of stating, that the profound 

 and enlarged speculations on the diffusion, preservation, and extinction of 

 races of animals to which Mr Darwin has been led by the remains which he 

 has brought home, give great additional value to the treasures which he has 

 collected, and make it proper to offer our congratulations to him, along with 

 Mr Owen, on the splendid results to which his expedition has led, and is 

 likely to lead. Mr Owen and Mr Darwin are engaged in the restoration of 

 other animals from the South American remains in their possession, and I 

 am able to announce that two or three other new genera have already been 

 detected. I am sure I am conveying your feeling. Gentlemen, as well as my 

 own, when I express a cordial hope that these two naturalists, so fitted by 

 their endowments and character to advance the progress of science, may long 

 go on achieving new triumphs ; and may have the satisfaction — higher even 

 than that which they derive from the honours we so willingly bestow — of 

 finding the great principles which it is given to them to wield, becoming 

 every year more powerful instruments of discovery ; and of seeing, as they 

 pursue their researches, light thrown upon the darkest and widest of the vast 

 problems which they have proposed to themselves. 



I will now say a few words concerning a few of the most conspicuous of 

 the names which have been obliterated by death from our list during the 

 year. 



Among the members of our body, whom we have lost, there is one whom 

 we cannot but mention with more than common emotion, endeared as he was 



