186 Reports & Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



As a diligent student of his "writings, I feel a special pleasure in placing 

 the Wollaston Medal in your hands for transmission to Professor Lacroix. 

 With no less pleasure, I am sure, will all British geologists see his name 

 added to a list which is already graced by the names of Elie de Beaumont 

 and Ami Boue, Daubree and Des Cloizeaux ; and they will acclaim this 

 award the more cordially since, in doing homage to a distinguished savant, 

 we are honouring a citizen of a great nation, with which our own is linked, 

 as we hope, by enduring ties. 



Sir Archibald Geikie replied : — 



Mr. President, — It is both a signal honour and a welcome pleasure to me 

 to have been requested by my friend Professor Lacroix to receive this 

 Medal on his behalf. He has asked me to express to you and to the Society 

 his grateful thanks that you should have thought him worthy of your 

 highest prize, and at the same time to assure you how deep is his regret 

 that his official engagements prevent him from leaving Paris and being with 

 us here to-day. You are aware that he has now added to his ordinary 

 professional duties those of Secretaire Perpetuel de l'Academie des 

 Sciences, thus following, at no great interval of time, another eminent 

 geologist of France, our lamented Foreign Member De Lapparent. 



You have sketched with well-merited appreciation the wide range of 

 investigation through which our latest Wollaston Medallist has pursued his 

 studies. He has united with pre-eminent skill the detailed work of the 

 laboratory with an appeal to the essential evidence which can only be 

 obtained in the field. In this latter branch of research he has been 

 fortunate in having as his companion and fellow-labourer a devoted and 

 enthusiastic wife. Madame Lacroix, as the daughter of Ferdinand Fouque, 

 has inherited her father's scientific ardour, and has proved herself to be as 

 capable and enduring a mountaineer as her husband. 



Professor Lacroix has sent me a brief address to you, Mr. President, 

 expressive of his grateful recognition of the honour which the Geological 

 Society has conferred upon him. I have ventured to make a translation of 

 this address, which I will now read : — 



" Mr. President, — No honour could be more appreciated by me than that 

 which the Geological Society of London has conferred upon me. Over and 

 above the pride which I feel in this award from so many competent judges, 

 among whom are not a few who pursue the same researches as those to 

 which I have devoted myself, there is added, in present circumstances, the 

 further gratification to see the ties strengthened which from old times have 

 linked the men of science in our two countries — Britain now striving, with 

 all her power and all her soul, hand in hand with France in defence of 

 Right and Liberty. 



"You have wished this year, I am sure, to honour in a more special 

 manner French geology, and this adds a further reason why I should be 

 touched that you have chosen me as the recipient of your prize. 



" In being so good as to represent me at your anniversary, Sir Archibald 

 Geikie, for whose work I have as great an admiration as I have respectful 

 esteem for him personally, will convey to you, as far as that is possible, my 

 regret that my official duties here prevent me from being present with you, 

 and expressing with my own living voice all my gratitude. 



" Among the distant memories of my student days there rises in my mind 

 the recollection of my old and dear master Des Cloizeaux (the friend of your 

 Professor Miller) carefully taking out of a drawer in his writing-table the 

 Wollaston Medal which he had some time before received from you, and 

 showing it to his pupils as one of the most valuable tokens of esteem that 

 he had ever received in the course of his long and laborious career. 



" How, indeed, could one not be proud, though with all humility, to see 

 one's name inscribed in your golden book below those of the founders of our 

 science, and following those among you who with such brilliance continue 

 to maintain their great and glorious inheritance ? 



