498 Anniversary Meeting. [Nov. 30j 



After completing these and other papers, too many to enumerate here, 

 Mr. Prestwich undertook the more difficult and complicated task of corre- 

 lating the successive tertiary formations of England, France, and Belgium ; 

 and communicated the results in Memoirs published in the Geological 

 Society's ' Journal,' embodying the fruit of many years of travelling and 

 much thought and study. 



In 1851 Mr. Prestwich published a separate work on the water-bearing 

 strata around London, facilitating the subterranean search for water by 

 giving actual measurements and probable estimates of the thickness of the 

 chalk and other beds immediately above and below the chalk, and suggesting 

 means of obtaining an additional supply of water for the metropolis. 



In 1859 Mr. Prestwich presented to the Royal Society a highly important 

 memoir on the occurrence of flint-implements associated with the remains 

 of animals of extinct species in France and England ; and another paper 

 in 18G3, on the theoretical questions connected with the same subject. 



In these memoirs, as generally throughout all his writings, Mr. Prestwich 

 has exhibited in a very marked degree a combination of unwearied labour 

 and patience in the accumulation of facts, with a remarkable impartiality 

 of judgment in the deduction of their bearing on the existing state of know- 

 ledge, a combination, the value of which cannot be too highly estimated. 



MR. PRF.STWICH, 



I present you with this Medal in testimony of the high sense entertained 

 by the Council, and specially by those Members of the Council who are 

 engaged in the same pursuits as yourself, of your laborious researches, 

 and of the spirit in which they have been conducted, in the rectification of 

 many important points in the geology of this and of neighbouring coun- 

 tries, and in tracing out the facts of the occurrence of implements, the 

 work of man's labour, in association with the remains of extinct animals. 



The Council has awarded a Royal Medal to Archibald Smith, Esq., 

 F.R.S., for his papers in the Philosophical Transactions and elsewhere on 

 the Magnetism of Ships. 



The irregularities to which ships' compasses are liable from the disturb- 

 ing influence of the iron contained in the ship, originally noticed by the 

 astronomer Wales in the voyages of Captain Cook, and subsequently by 

 Flinders at the commencement of the present century, attained a magni- 

 tude in the first of the polar voyages of discovery, viz. that of 1818, which 

 forced on the attention of those who were responsible for the navigation of 

 the vessels the indispensable necessity of meeting and surmounting the 

 difficulties and dangers occasioned thereby. Having been attached to the 

 two first of these expeditions to take charge of all matters of a scientific 

 character, this duty devolved more especially on myself; and before the 

 expedition of 1819 quitted the northern shores of Britain (those of the 

 Shetland Islands), two leading characteristics of modern practice the 



