lUrNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. Ixxiil 



of Australia. The first actual discovery of gold in Australia may 

 possibly have been made by Count Strzelecki, as asserted in the 

 ' English Cyclopaedia,' or by Mr. Hargreaves, or possibly by shepherds 

 before either the one or the other name was noised abroad ; but for 

 Sir Koderick Murchison must be claimed the credit of having inferred 

 the presence of gold in the Australian monntain-ranges, from the 

 analogy which their formation bore to the Ural Mountains, with the 

 physical outlines of which he had made himself familiar, quite apart 

 from any knowledge of the fact that gold had been picked up on the 

 Australian continent ; and not only for this discovery ought his name 

 to be remembered, but also for his having endeavoured (though with 

 very little success at the time) to awaken the attention of the Home 

 Government to the great importance of the subject to the interests 

 of our colonies in the southern hemisphere. 



Sir Roderick, having acted for five years as Secretary of the Geo- 

 logical Society, became President of that body in 1831-32, and again 

 in 1842-43. He was one of the few scientific men who responded 

 at once to the call of Sir David Brewster in 1830 to join in esta- 

 blishing the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of 

 which, for several years, he acted as General Secretary, and over 

 whose meeting at Southampton, in 1846, he presided. He has from 

 year to year taken the most active part in the business of the Geo- 

 graphical Section at its annual meetings, and has communicated very 

 many important papers on these occasions. In 1844 ho was elected 

 President of the Royal Geographical Society, was re-elected in the 

 following year, and again in 1852 and in 1856. He has held the 

 Presidential chair of that society down almost to the present time, 

 having been succeeded only a few months ago by Sir Henry Raw- 

 linson. In 1855 he succeeded the late Sir Henry de la Beche as 

 Director of the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street, 

 which has owed its efficiency for the last fifteen years very largely 

 to his energy and constant attention. It is almost needless to add 

 that he received recognition of his discoveries in science from the 

 Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, by the bestowal on 

 him of their Honorary Degree ; and that he was a member of nearly 

 aU the learned societies upon the Continent, including the Imperial 

 Institute of France. He was also one of the Trustees of the British 

 Museum, and Director-General of the Geological Survey of the 

 United Kingdom. 



In 1863 Sir Roderick Murchison was nominated a Knight Com- 

 mander of the Order of the Bath (Civil Division), and in the following 



Linn. Pkoc. — Session 1871-72. i 



