1 66 A HISTORY OF 



chairman made a complimentary speech. The medal 

 cost ^17, 9-*". 9^-j and was executed by William 

 Mossop, jun. Giesecke was absent from this country 

 on special leave, from July 1817 to the end of the 

 summer of 1819, when the cause of his prolonged 

 absence was fully explained in a report of the com- 

 mittee of mineralogy. Having been originally em- 

 ployed by the Danish government in Greenland, he 

 was compelled to go over to Copenhagen to close the 

 business relations in reference to his commission to that 

 country. Serious illness overtook him, and his life 

 was despaired of. On recovery, he had to visit his 

 native Augsburg, to settle private affairs before taking 

 up his permanent residence in Ireland. After that, he 

 journeyed to Vienna, to present specimens obtained in 

 Greenland for the Austrian government. Giesecke 

 further explained in his report that he had been 

 working at his Lectures on the Natural History of 

 Greenland, which he hoped might reflect credit on the 

 Society whose professor he had become. 



In August 1825, Giesecke undertook a mineralogical 

 tour in Galway, Mayo, and the island of Achill, and, in 

 1826, through Donegal. One hundred and fifty 

 guineas were voted to him for the latter tour, and his 

 reports on both are printed in the Proceedings. In 

 1828, he went through Derry, Antrim, Tyrone, and 

 Down, and in the Proceedings, vol. Ixvii. app. i., will be 

 found a report on the scientific results of this journey. 

 Sir Charles Giesecke, K.D. (as he was generally called 

 from 1816, when he was made a knight of the Danish 

 order of the Dannebrog), died very suddenly on the 

 5th of March 1833. The museum was closed for a 

 fortnight as a mark of respect to his memory. The 

 Society, at the meeting subsequent to his death, ex- 

 pressed its high sense of his long-tried talents as a 



