Geological Society of London. ney 
devoted to that important subject; while several of his memoirs treat of petrographical 
questions. In Paleontology Dr. Newberry has made many valuable contributions to 
our knowledge, especially in connexion with Fishes and Plants. Nor have the great 
problems of Geological Philosophy been neglected by our esteemed Foreign Member, 
who now occupies so important a post in connexion with one of the greatest educa- 
tional institutions of his native country. When the Director-General of our own 
Geological Survey transmits to one of the pioneers of American Geology a medal 
founded by a father of British Geology, the action may be fairly held to typify the 
universal brotherhood of Science. 
Dr. Gerxtn, in reply, said: —Mr. President,—On the part of Dr. Newberry I am 
commissioned to receive the Murchison Medal which has been awarded to him. Were 
my friend here himself, he would express, far more fittingly than I can, his gratifica- 
tion that the Geological Society of London has conferred this honour upon him. But 
there is one advantage perhaps in his absence. that we can freely speak of him and 
his work, regarding which he would himself wish to be silent; and it is of him and 
his work that the Fellows doubtless wish to hear. 
It is now nearly forty years since he began his scientific career. During this long 
interval of constant and enthusiastic labour, as you have so well observed, there are 
few departments of Geology into which he has not entered, and where he has not left 
the impress of his clear insight, his singular mastery of detail, and his faculty of 
broad and luminous generalization. And yet this record of fruitful work has been 
achieved in the midst of continual demands on his time and thought made by pro- 
fessional and official duties—demands which for most men would have been enough to 
fill up a busy life. To geologists on this side of the Atlantic who know him only by 
published writings, there are more especially three lines of research with which his 
name is associated. It was he who in the expedition under Lieutenant Ives, eight- 
and-twenty years ago, first made known to the world the wonders of the Colorado 
River of the West, who recognized in that region monuments of the most stupendous 
denudation, and who by his clear and graphic descriptions inaugurated a new era in 
the discussion of the problem of land-sculpture. His researches on Fossil Plants 
have placed him in the very front rank of those who have made known to us the 
characters of the vegetation of former periods of the earth’s history. As a fitting 
crown to these researches he will shortly publish a large monograph, with two hundred 
plates, descriptive of the fossil floras of North America. And, thirdly, his long and 
minute investigation of Fossil Fishes has enabled him to repeople the ancient waters 
of the North American continent with the abundant and often extraordinary types 
which characterized them. Another great monograph, with sixty plates, on this 
subject, is also in the press. 
There seems to me something peculiarly appropriate in the award of the Murchison 
Medal to such aman. He is a geologist after Murchison’s own heart—keen of eye, 
stout of limb, with a due sense of the value of detail, but with a breadth of vision 
that keeps detail in due subordination. 
If I may be permitted, I would fain add a word of personal gratification that it 
has fallen to my lot to be intermediary on this interesting occasion between the Geolo- 
gical Society of London and one of the most distinguished men of science in the 
United States. The geologists of North America are drawn to us by stronger ties 
and closer sympathy than most of us are perhaps aware. They look on our Society 
as the parent of their own kindred associations. Our fathers in geology are also theirs. 
They wait for the advent of our Journal, and keep themselves far more fully conver- 
sant with what is done within these walls than most of us, I am afraid, do with 
their work. I confess that, for myself, I often teel ashamed and mortified that I can 
do so little to keep myself abreast of the rapid and astounding progress of our 
science on the other side of the ocean. We hardly realize and recognize as fully as 
we should the nature and bearing of the work of our brethren across the sea. So I 
hail this opportunity of holding out the right hand of fellowship, for I am certain 
that the geologists of the United States will feel that in doing honour to Dr. New- 
berry the Geological Society of London wishes at the same time to express its appre- 
ciation of American geologists and its best wishes for the advance of American 
geology. : 
In handing the Balance of the Proceeds of the Murchison Geolo- 
gical Fund to Henry Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., for transmission to 
DECADE III.—VOL. V.—NO. IV. 12 
