March 25, 1886] 



NA TURE 



503 



in reference to the history of the literature of geology, a task 

 involving not a little labour, which, though of the greatest value 

 to students, is to all unremunerative, and would be, to many, 

 exceptionally toilsome. Of this, your care for several years of 

 the Geological Record^ and the lists of books and memoirs re- 

 lating to the geology of various counties in England, are con- 

 spicuous instances. There is a peculiar appropriateness in the 

 award to you of this medal, founded by Sir Roderick Murchison, 

 one of the illustrious chiefs of your Survey, and I have the 

 greatest pleasure, on behalf of the Council of the Geological 

 Society, in placing it in your hands, together with the customary 

 grant from the Fund. — In presenting the balance of the proceeds 

 of the Murchison Geological Fund to Mr. Clement Reid, F.G.S., 

 the President said : — Mr. Clement Reid, — The later Pliocene and 

 the Pleistocene deposits of East Anglia offer to geologists a 

 series of problems as difficult as they are attractive. We 

 are indebted to you for much valuable information on the 

 exact distribution and the fossil contents of these varied deposits, 

 which owing to peculiar local circumstances often present ex- 

 ceptional difficulties, and demand exceptionally patient study on 

 the part of the investigators. Your memoir on the Forest Bed 

 I of Norfolk is a contribution of especial value to students as afford- 

 ing them fuller and more precise information than could pre- 

 viously be obtained, while the pages of our yournal and of the 

 Geological Magazine testify to the zeal and thoroughness with 

 which you have applied yourself to these and kindred questions. 

 In conferring upon you this award from the Murchison Fund, 

 which I have great pleasure in placing in your hands, the 

 Council of the Geological Society hopes that it may aid you in 

 prosecuting your studies in this department of geology and 

 extending them to localities which could not be visited by you 

 in the discharge of your professional duties as a Member of the 

 Geological Survey of Great Britain. — The President next pre- 

 sented the Lyell Medal to Mr. William Pengelly, F.R.S., 

 F.G.S., and addressed him as follows: — Mr. Pengelly, — The 

 Council of the Geological Society has awarded you the Lyell 

 Medal and a sum of twenty guineas from the Fund in recogni- 

 tion of your life-long labours in the cause of geology, and more 

 especially, of your investigations in those caverns of the south- 

 west of England by means of which our knowledge of the con- 

 dition of Britain daring the latest epoch of geological history has 

 been so largely augmented. To exhume the contents of a 

 cavern, not only the lair of wild beasts, but also an abode of 

 men in those ages when, to quote the words of the old Greek 

 tragedian, 



" Like tiny ants they dwelt in sunless caves," ^ 



requires the exercise of unwearied patience and, in addition, of 

 extensive l^nowledge and critical acumen. By the labours of 

 the Committee, of which you were the hands and the eyes, and 

 at least a fair proportion of the compound brain, Mr. MacEnery's 

 long-neglected discoveiy in Kent's Hole was placed beyond all 

 dispute, and the contents of that cavern, its succession of 

 ■ deposits, its relics of extinct animals, and its tools of stone and 

 bone, denoting more than one stage of civilisation, have been 

 made known to the world. In like way the virgin ground of 

 the Brixham cave was investigated, and its valuable contents 

 have been rendered accessible to students. All this you have 

 done, not as the fruit of secured leisure, but in the intervals of a 

 busy life, of which, in the full sense of the words, time was 

 money ; and you began this work at a period when, owing to 

 mistaken prejudices, you incurred no small risk of obloquy and 

 personal loss. Your v\ ork at Bovey Tracey and your papers on 

 the later geology of Devonshire and Cornwall are too well known 

 to need more than a passing allusion ; the Torquay Museum and 

 the Iratisactions of the local societies will be a lasting monu- 

 ment of your zeal in stimulating scientific researches in the 

 neighbourhood of your home. There is a peculiar fitness in the 

 award to you of this Medal, a memorial of the fearless and 

 illustrious author of the "Principles of Geology" and of the 

 *' Antiquity of Man.'' I esteem myself exceptionally fortunate 

 in being commissioned to place it in your hands, and being thus 

 enabled to testify my regard for so valued and genial a friend. 

 — In handing the balance of the proceeds of the Lyell Donation 

 Fund to Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., F.G.S., for transmis- 

 sion to Mr. D. Mackintosh, F.G.S., the President addressed 

 him as follows : — Dr. Woodward, — I have much pleasure in 

 placing in your hands, as representing Mr. Mackintosh, the 

 balance of the Lyell Donation Fund awarded to him by the 

 Council of the Geological Society. In him we have a second 

 instance of the way in which, through an untiring zeal for 



science, the rare mtervals of a hard-worked life may bear fruit 

 so largely augmenting the common stock of geological know- 

 ledge. There are few problem.s more interesting than that of 

 the physical condition of our native land during the period com- 

 monly designated the Glacial epoch ; but for its solution an 

 exact knowledge of the distribution of erratics and an identifica- 

 tion of their points of departure is absolutely necessary. Those 

 who, like myself, have attempted to adjust the rival claims of 

 glacier and Hoe, of the ice-chaviot vei-siis the ice-ship, as vehicles 

 of boulder-transport, can hardly speak too highly of the value of 

 the papers on British erratics which he has contributed to our 

 yournal and to other publications. I trust that this award may 

 not only be gratifying to him as a mark of our appreciation, but 

 also help him in continuing his labours in a field where, notwith- 

 standing them, much still remains to be done. — The President 

 then handed the award from the Barlow-Jameson Fund to Dr. 

 W. T. Blanford, F. R. S., for transmission to Dr. H. J. Johnston- 

 Lavis, F.G.S., and addressed himas follows : — Dr. Blanford, — 

 I will ask you to transmit this award to Mr. Johnston-Lavis. In 

 this country happily the volcanic fires have long ceased to glow, 

 and the earthquake seldom causes more than a transient tremor. 

 It is otherwise on the shores of the Bay of Naples, where again 

 and again during the last eighteen centuries Vesuvius has rained 

 down ruin ; and of late years the earthquakes of Ischia have 

 wrought destruction on the works, and desolation in the homes, 

 of men. It is true that these phenomena of the darker side of 

 nature have not been unobserved by the many illustrious men of 

 science to whom Italy has given birth; but "the cur^e of 

 Babel " has debarred s^jme of us from access to their works. This 

 alone gives an exceptional value to the elaborate studies which 

 Mr. Johnston-Lavis has undertaken of the various eruptive pro- 

 ducts of Vesuvius and of the Ischian earthquakes. There is yet 

 another advantage, that natural phenomena should be studied 

 by men of different nations, diverse training, and varied habits 

 of mind. In recognition of his past labours and in furtherance 

 of futui'e work in the vicinity of Naples, the Council has awarded 

 to him a grant from the Barlow-Jameson Fund, which I have 

 much pleasure in placing in your hands. — The President then 

 read his Anniversary Address, in which, after giving obituary 

 notices of some of the Members lost by the Society during the 

 year 18S5, he referred to the principal contributions to geological 

 knowledge which have been made during the past year, both in 

 the publications of the Society and elsewhere in Britain. The re- 

 mainder of the address was devoted to a discussion of the principles 

 of nomenclature which should be followed in regard to the meta- 

 morphic rocks. After describing the nature and relations of the 

 various mefamorphic rocks in certain parts of the Alps, Canada, 

 Scotland, &c., the effects of the intrusion of igneous rocks, 

 and the results of pressure in producing changes, both mechani- 

 cal and chemical, upon rocks originally crystalHne, he pointed 

 out that these last could generally be distinguished from 

 anterior foliation, otherwise produced ; that many rocks in the 

 metamorphic series appear to have originated in stratified de- 

 posits, but that the evidence at present in our possession pointed 

 to the very great antiquity of all these, and to the probability of 

 their having been produced under conditions which have not 

 recurred since the beginning of the Palaeozoic period. — The 

 ballot for the Council and Officers was taken, and the following 

 were duly elected for the ensuing year : — President : Prof J. AV. 

 Judd, F. R. S. ; Vice-Presidents : H. Bauerman, John Evans, 

 F.R.S., A. Geikie, F.R.S., and J. A. Phillips, F.R.S.'; Secre- 

 taries: W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., and W. H. Hudleston, 

 F.R.S. ; Foreign Secretary: Warington W. Smyth, F.R.S. ; 

 Treasurer: Prof T. Wiltshire, F.L.S. ; Council: H. Bauer- 

 man, W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., 

 Thomas Davies, Prof P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S., John Evans, 

 F.R.S., A. Geikie, F.R.S., Henry Hicks, F.R.S., G. J. 

 Hinde, Ph.D., J. Hopkinson, W. H. Hudleston, F.R.S., 

 Prof. T. M 'Kenny Hughes, M.A., Prof. T. Rupert Jones, 

 F.R.S., Prof. J. W. Judd, F.R.S., R. Lydekker, B.A., J. E. 

 Man-, M.A., J. A. Phillips, F.R.S., Prof. H. G. Seeley, 

 F.R.S., Warington W. Smyth, F.R.S., J. J. H. Teall, M.A., 

 W. Topley, Prof. T. Wiltshire, F.L.S., Henry Woodward, 

 F.R.S. 



Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, March 15. — M. Jurien de la 

 Graviere, President, in the chair. — On the authenticity and 

 exact value of the Peiuvian unit of measure preserved in the 

 Paris Observatory, by M. C. Wolf. The French legal metre 

 being defined as a determined fraction of this standard taken at 

 the temperature of 13" Reaumur, the importance of ascertaining 



