LIKNEAN SOCIETY OF LOXDOX. 3 1 



branch of laboratory work, an example which we in this country 

 will do well to lay to heart. 



Lastly, I come to your contributions to fossil botany, the side 

 of your work with which I happen to have been in closest touch. 

 Beginning in 1883-84 with papers on the fossil fern tScoJecopterit 

 ehf/ans and on Permian ConifercE, you published in 1887 your 

 'Einleitung in die Paliiopliytologie ' (translated five years later, 

 for the Oxford Press), a book which marks an epoch in the history 

 of this science. To many, like myself, who had never till then 

 realized the wealth and significance of the fossil material, this 

 truly scientific exposition must have come as a revelation. In my 

 own case it prepared me to appreciate the treasures of the 

 Williamson Collection, and the work of our dear old friend 

 himself, which you alone, at that time, were able to estimate at 

 its true value. 



Since then you have continued to enrich our science by a 

 series of memoirs of the utmost importance. To recount them 

 all would be to write the history of fossil botany during the last 

 quarter of a century. I may mention the work on the English 

 Greensand fossil, Bennettites Gihsoniaaus, the type of an extinct 

 family, dominant in JMesozoic times; on the Cycadofilices or 

 Pteridosperms, to use a later name (a group which you and William- 

 sou were the first to recognise), Froto^nti/s, Medullosa, Volkelia 

 and Sttlod'i/hn ; on the Lower Carboniferous plants (now likely 

 to prove of Devonian age) of Falkenberg and Thuringia ; on 

 Stigmca-iojjsis, Pleuromeia and many more, — all researches which 

 have done much to transform fossil botany and to place it in its 

 present strong position as a worthy ally of animal paliEontology. 

 In this subject also your work is as active as ever, and I am delighted 

 to bear that you are about to elucidate further the structure of 

 that wonderful genus of Paheozoic tree-ferns Psaronius, the first 

 group of fossil plants showing structure to attract attention, and 

 still among the most interesting and difiicult. 



I ask you to accept this medal as a symbol of the deep admira- 

 tion and aifection of your English colleagues, and as the highest 

 recognition which this Society can bestow. 



The recipient having received the Medal, expressed his thanks 

 as follows : — 



Mr. President, Ladies and GentleiDen, 



It has not been an easy matter for me to come to London 

 this spring, but as I am fond of this country, where I have so 

 many friends, and have always been received with the greatest 

 kindness by public institutions as well as by private persons, it 

 seemed to me to be my duty personally to present my most 

 hearty thanks to this Society, the first of all the great societies 

 to receive me as a member, and now has awarded me the highest 

 honour in its power, an honour I can only accept with the proviso 

 " Magnis in rebus voluisse sat est." 



