Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 179 



Geological Society of London. 



I. — February 20th, 1903. — Professor Charles LapwortlT, LL.D., 

 F.E.S., President, in the Chair. 



Annual Genekal Meeting. 



The reports of the Council and of the Library and Museum 

 Oommittee for the year 1902, proofs of which had been previously 

 distributed to the Fellows, were read. After premising that the 

 Society continues to be generally in a flourishing condition, the 

 Council stated that the number of Fellows had undergone but little 

 change in 1902. The number elected was 48 (4 less than in 1901), 

 of whom 30 qualified before the end of the year, making, with 

 18 previously elected Fellows, a total accession of 48 in the 

 course of the twelve months under review. During the same period, 

 the losses by death, I'esignation, and removal amounted to 41, 

 the actual increase in the number of Fellows being therefore 7 

 (as compared with a decrease of 4 in 1901). The total number 

 of Fellows on December 31st, 1902, was 1,258. 



The balance-sheet for that year showed receipts to the amount of 

 £3,439 16s. ^d. (including a balance of £403 12s. 3(1. brought 

 forward from the previous year), and an expenditure of 

 £3,128 8s. Id. (exclusive of the sum of £250 invested in Natal 

 Government 3 per cent, stock). 



The issue of the Catalogue of Type and other important 

 Specimens in the Society's Museum, based on Mr. Sherborn's 

 manuscript catalogue, edited and prepared for publication by the 

 Kev. J. F. Blake (to whom the Society are greatly indebted), was 

 also announced. 



The reports having been received, the President handed the 

 Wollaston Medal, awarded to Professor Heinrich Eosenbusch, 

 For.Memb.G.S., of Heidelberg, to Professor W. J. Sollas, M.A., 

 D.Sc, F.R.S., for transmission to the recipient, addressing him as 

 follows : — Professor Sollas, — 



No man has exercised a greater influence on the progress of petrological science 

 than Professor Eosenbusch. Though a master of detail, he has always insisted on 

 the important bearing of microscopical studies on many of the great theoretical 

 problems of modern geology. 



In his celebrated researches on the Steigen Schiefer he combined stratigraphical, 

 mineralogical, and chemical data in such a manner that his memoir must for all time 

 remain a classic in geological literature. His subsequent work is all of the same 

 philosophical character, and every question that he has handled has been fundamentally 

 modified and notably advanced as the result of his investigations. The fertihty 

 which he has shown, in the production of new and often profound theories, has only 

 been equaUed by the courage with which he has discarded the old so soon as they 

 have proved unsatisfactory or incomplete. 



The successive editions of his great work on the microscopic characters of minerals 

 and rocks have been landmarks in the progress of the science. The range of his 

 knowledge therein revealed is enormous, yet we never feel that his writings are 

 overburdened with detail, because of the power of philosophical generalization with 

 which he marshals his facts, and reduces the whole to a consistent and well co- 

 ordinated unity. 



