ENCOURAGEMENT OF ORIGINAL RESEARCH. 181 



ENCOURAGEMENT OF ORIGINAL RESEARCH : 



THE DAE WIN PRIZE. 



It affords us unfeigned pleasure to have the privilege of submitting 

 to our readers the details of a valuable plan for the encouragement 

 and reward of original research by local Geologists, Naturalists, and 

 Archasologists. The scheme, it will be seen, has grown out of a suggestion 

 warmly received at the Northampton meeting of the Midland Union by 

 the members, and by them referred to the Committee of Management to 

 consider and if approved to carry out. The " Darwin Prize " will, 

 we feel assui'ed, act as an incentive to much real and useful work, 

 and we trust no year will pass without that enviable reward being 

 worthily won. The following extract from the letter in which Mr. 

 Darwin gave his permission for the prize to be named after him was 

 in answer to the unanimously expressed desire of the Committee : — 



" I request that you will be so good as to inform the members of the 

 Committee that their wish to name the Medal after me is a very great 

 honour, which I gladly accept. It is particularly pleasing to me to have 

 my name connected, in however indirect a manner, with a scheme for 

 advancing Science — the study of which has been my chief source of 

 happiness throughout life." 



This plan for encouraging original work affords the utmost liberty, 

 within given limits each year, for the contributions to deal with 

 subjects deliberately chosen by the writers, If, as we hope will always be 

 the case, the communications to be rewarded by the Darwin Prize are 

 the result of much careful investigation, the pages of this journal will be 

 enriched by them, and they will add to the stores of scientific knowledge. 

 Thus next year the whole range of Geology is open to select from, 

 including mineralogy, petrology, and the application of chemistry, the 

 spectroscope, and the polariscope, to the study of rocks and minerals. 

 The following is the scheme adopted by the Committee : — 



The Midland Union of Natural History Societies. 



Encouragement of Original Research. 



The Darwin Prize. 



The Council, at the last Annual Meeting at Northampton, 



submitted for consideration, with their hearty approval, a proposal 



made by one of their body, Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S., to the 



effect that an Annual Prize should be provided for the purpose of 



recognising and encouraging original research by Members of the 



Societies in the Union. The proposal was favourably received by the 



Meeting, and referred to the Committee of Management, who were 



empowered to carry it into effect if they saw fit. 



After careful consideration by the Committee, at a Meeting held 

 at Birmingham, on Thursday, July loth, 1880, the President-Elect 

 (Dr. T. Wright, F.R.S.) in the chair, the following scheme was adopted : — 



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