Anniversary Meeting. 183 



I was so much interestfed in scanning its pages that I ordered a copy, and read 

 it slowly and carefully at my leisure. Professor Chfton mentioned my interest 

 in crystals to his Oxford colleague, that enthusiastic crystallographer, Professor 

 Maskelyne, and I was invited to call at the British Museum ; the visit had for 

 result a brief official connexion with him in the Mineral Department, and, what 

 was still more important, a long-continued friendship that ended only with his 

 life thirty-four years later. To both of them I am thus under a heavy debt of 

 gratitude. 



The President then presented the Murchison Medal to Professor 

 Louis DoUo, F.M.G.S., addressing him as follows: — 



Professor DOLLO, — The Council have awarded you the Murchison Medal 

 ' in recognition of the importance of your numerous contributions to our know- 

 ledge of Vertebrate Palaeontology. Twenty-three years ago they encouraged 

 your early work by the award of the Lyell Fund, and since that time the Society 

 has continued to follow your researches with interest, enrolling you first as 

 a Foreign Correspondent and then as a Foreign Member. The promise of your 

 earliest publications on the Wealden Eeptiles of Bernissart has been fulfilled in 

 your later papers on the Cretaceous Mosasaurians and various other vertebrate 

 fossils ; and your philosophical insight has illumined many difficult problems 

 which other authors found obscure. I need only refer to your interesting 

 essays on the evolution of the Dipnoan Fishes, on the auditory apparatus of 

 Mosasaurians and Ichthyosaurians, and on the feet of Marsupials, which are 

 classics in modern palseontological literature. Your demonstration of the 

 principle of ' irreversibility ' in organic evolution has led to important conclusions 

 which are now generally appreciated ; and your treatise on ethological 

 palaeontology has opened the eyes of observers to the evidences of correlation 

 between structure and function which may be observed in several classes of 

 fossil animals. Your papers never fail to embody suggestions which are 

 stimulating and conducive to new points of view. 



Professor Dollo, in reply, said — 



Monsieur le President, — Permettez-moi d'exprimer mes sentiments de 

 profonde reconnaissance a la Societe geologique de Londres pour le grand 

 honneur qu'elle veut bien me faire en me d^cernant la MMaille de Murchison. 



II y a pres d'un quart de siecle deja, votre Societe eut la bonte d'encourager 

 mes premiers travaux, en m'attribuant le Fonds Lyell : c'^tait le temps des 

 Iguanodons et des Mosasaures. 



Depuis, sans jamais cesser de m'occuper des Eeptiles fossiles, j'ai ^te amen^ 

 a aborder de multiples problemes de Paleontologie ^thologique, et, meme, tout 

 recemment, il me fut donn^, a cette occasion, de faire une incursion dans le 

 Monde silurien. La grande ombre de Murchison a accueilli ma hardiesse avec 

 indulgence, puisque je puis, aujourd'hui, vous assurer de ma gratitude, en 

 recevant la Medaille fondee par cet illustre Geologue. 



Mais je n'en ai pas fini avec les Eeptiles fossiles de la Belgique, dont, 

 prochainement, je suis heureux de pouvoir vous I'annoncer, le Musee de 

 Bruxelles exposera une importante serie nouvelle, provenant des Terrains 

 eocene, oligoeene et miocene, notamment un squellete gigantesque, presque 

 complet, de V Eosphargis gigas, decouvert d'abord en Angleterre. 



Et, maintenant, commencent a arriver les Eeptiles fossiles du Congo, encore 

 tres fragmentaires, mais pourtant caracteristiques, dont j'ai pu signaler les 

 premiers restes a I'Academie royale de Belgique, au debut de cette annee. 



Apres trente ans de carriere, une tache considerable se dresse done encore 

 devant moi : en cette occurrence, la Medaille de Murchison sera un stimulant 

 precieux, qui me soutiendra dans mes efforts, et c'est pourquoi je vous en 

 remercie. 



In presenting the Lyell Medal to Philip Lake, M.A., the President 

 addressed him as follows : — 



Mr. Lake, — As an old friend of many years' standing, I regard it as a great 

 privilege to hand you the Lyell Medal which the Council has awarded to you, as 



