460 PRIZE QUESTIONS. 



■will each year award similar distinctions to the old servants of industry. The 

 certificiites delivered in favor of industrial agents ruu^t be recognized and 

 cei'tifled as true by the patrons. 



General condiUons of competition. — Each year the memoirs and other labors 

 will be addressed, free of charge, to the secretary general of the society at the 

 Hotel lie Ville, before the 15th of October. Every remittance will bear an 

 epigraph, reproduced in form of address upon a sealed note, which contains tire 

 name and denotes the domicile of the author, together with an attestation signed 

 by him, certifying that which sent has not been made public nor presented be- 

 fore for competition. This note will not be opened unless the candidate shall 

 have merited a recompense. Every manuscript, design, plan, or model offered 

 in competition remains the property of the society, which may authorize the 

 author to take a copy at his own expense ; the preceding disposition, however, 

 is not applicable to objects of art. The certificates given in favor of workmen 

 and industrial agents who prefer a claim to the medals and premiums offered 

 for good and long service must be addressed before the 15th of October to the 

 secretary general. 



COMPTE DE MELUN, 



PrcsidcTit. 



P. GUIKAUDET, 



Secretary General. 



WICAE PRIZE, INSTITUTED BY THE IMPERIAL SOCIETY OF SCIENCES, 

 AGRICULTURE, AND ARTS OF LILLE. 



An annual prize is founded by a decree of the society, which shall bear 

 the name of the Wicar prize, and, in the present state of the resources, shall 

 consist of 1,000 francs. This prize will be annually awarded, in succession, 

 to difi'erent branches of study, which, with that view, will be divided iijto 

 three sections : Section of literature and of the fine arts, comprising literature, 

 poetry, architecture, painting, sculpture, &c.; section of sciences, physics, chem- 

 istry, mechanics, industrial sciences, &c. ; section of historical, moral, and eco- 

 nomical sciences. In the event that a prize assigned to one section be not awarded 

 the first year, competition Avill remain open for following years, until the prize 

 shall be awarded or triennial rotation restore it to the same section. As in the 

 latter case the society must open anew a competition in the same section, the 

 sum appropriated to the new prize will be added to that of the prize which has 

 remained unemployed, when there may be two prizes proposed or a single one 

 of double value. 



Competition for 1866. — Section of sciences. — Geology: to show the distribu- 

 tion of fossil vegetables in the coal basin of the north of I'rance, and to indicate 

 the conclusions which may be drawn from this distribution in regard to the geo- 

 logical constitution of the basin and its mode of formation. It should be ascer- 

 tained whether special floras, analogous to those which M. Geinitz has recog- 

 nized in Saxony, can be distinguished in the different beds of our coal basin. 

 Such a discovery would be of much importance, since it would suffice to collect 

 a certain number of vegetables in a bed of coal in order immediately to know 

 the place which this bed occupies in the coal formation. It would enable us 

 also to ascertain whether our coal basin is complete, or is only a remnant, of 

 which the portions elevated by a cataclysm are to be sought elsewhere. It 

 should be inquired, at the same time, whether the nature of the vegetables con- 

 stituting these difi'erent floras be such that we can recognize them as having lived 

 under dift'eient conditions, and an attempt should be made* to determine these 

 conditions, as has been done by M. Ludwig for the tertiary combustibles of the 



