30 PEOCEEDINGS OE THE 



operations were slender ; but in working them out, Dr. Wallieh 

 showed that he had already grasped all the principal problems of 

 deep-sea research. To the solution of these problems he applied 

 his wide range of knowledge, the soundness and power of his 

 reasoning, his originality and independence of thought. His 

 work, ' The North Atlantic Sea-Bed,' incomplete as it is, stands 

 as a lasting record of the progress made by him in our knowledge 

 of deep-sea life, and of the impetus which he gave to subsequent 

 deep-sea exploration. 



" For more than twenty years he continued to work in the same 

 line of inquiry, and in investigating collatei'al subjects, notably 

 the life-history, structure, and relationships of those unicellular 

 organisms which play so important a part in pelagic and bathybial 

 life, and the lithological identity of the ancient chalk formation 

 and of the calcareous deposits in the oceans of the present time. 



" The remarkable results which he obtained in his investigations 

 were due not only to his accuracy and keenness as an observer, 

 but also to the ingenuity of the methods applied by him. Thus 

 at a time wlien our modern micro-chemical methods were un- 

 kjiown, he employed the electric discliarge as a means of differ- 

 entiating the nucleus, and he determined the excretory function 

 of the contractile vacuole. 



" Tour Council were of opinion that work of such originality, 

 advancing so many branches of Biology, was peculiarly fit to be 

 honoured by the award of the Linnean medal." 



A special Gold Medal was awarded by the Society to Sir Joseph 

 Daltojs^ Hooker, G.C.S.I., C.B., P.-P.E.S., on the occasion of 

 the completion of ' The Flora of British India,' in recognition of 

 the Services rendered by him to Science, during sixty years of 

 unremitting labour. In presenting the Medal Dr. Giinther 

 made the following remarks : — - 



" The completion of a monumental work in Botany, the ' Flora 

 of British India,' has been chosen by our Council as a fit occasion 

 for the Linnean Society to pay its tribute to the recognition of 

 the eminent services which have been rendered to biological 

 science by Joseph Dalton Hooker. A gold medal, specially struck 

 for the occasion, of which copies could be distributed among his 

 numerous friends and admirers, was considered to be the most 

 appropriate and the most euduriug form to serve as a memorial 

 of this desire of the Society. 



"If I attempted, or were competent, to pass in review the work 

 by which J. D. Hooker has advanced botanical science and 

 enriched its literature, the few words I intend to address to you 

 would swell into a biography ; for of the sixty years which have 

 elapsed since he entered the service of science, there are but few 

 in which he has not left his mark upon its history. 



" The four years uhich he passed with the Antarctic expedition, 

 and the three years during which he wandered among the ranges 



