184 Reports and Froceedinys — Geological Society of London. 



master of oui' science. I may perhaps be permitted to add an expression of my own 

 gratification that, looking back on my early association Avith you as a colleague 

 in the Geological Survey, it has fallen to me to hand you to-day this mark of 

 appreciation from the Council of the Geological Society. 



Professor Lebour replied as follows : — Sir Archibald Geikie, — 



My feelings on this occasion are divided between regret at the absence of my 

 old friend Professor Lapworth and gratification at receiving the Medal which 

 commemorates my first chief. Sir Et)derick Murchison, from the hand of one 

 who was his favourite colleague, his successor, and his biographer. An award 

 such as this is of the greatest value to a teacher : it confirms his pupils in the 

 trust which they place in him, and at the same time gives him confidence in can-ying 

 on his own work. In my case, I will not be so presumptuous as to question the 

 propriety of the Council's decision, however it may have surprised me. I am 

 especially pleased that in the too kind words that you have uttered, the name 

 of my dear friend and colleague of long ago, William Topley, has once more been 

 coupled with mine. I am sure that no one would have rejoiced more than he at my 

 good fortune this day. I beg most heartily to thank the Council for the honoiu- 

 which they have done me. 



In handing the Lyell Medal, awarded to Professor Alfred Gabriel 

 Nathorst, of Stockholm, to Baron C. de Bildt, Envoy Extraordinary 

 and Minister Plenipotentiary of H.M. the King of Sweden and 

 Norway, for transmission to the recipient, the Chairman addressed 

 him as follows : — Baron de Bildt, — 



Your Excellency has been good enough to come here to-day to receive for your 

 counti-pnan, Professor Nathorst, of Stockholm, the Lyell Medal, which has been 

 awarded to him this year by the Geological Society in recognition of his long and 

 distinguished labours to advance om- knowledge of the vegetation which at successive 

 periods in the history of the earth has flourished in Northern Em'ope and the Arctic 

 regions. These laboiu-s range from the oldest to the youngest ages of geological 

 time. Among the most ancient rocks various curious markings, which had generally 

 been regarded as traces of marine plants, were shown many years ago by Professor 

 Nathorst, after an ingenious series of experiments, to be probably not of vegetable 

 origin. But while he thus cut ofp what had been supposed to be an early marine 

 flora, he has greatly extended our acquaintance with the terrestrial floras of 

 PahiDozoic time in the Arctic regions. His papers on the extension of the vegetation 

 of the Upper Old Red Sandstone as far north as Bear Island, continuing the earlier 

 work of Heer, are of special interest. He has thrown much light on the flora 

 of the Triassic deposits that extend into the south of Sweden. From the far 

 northern King Charles Land he has made known the existence of a Jurassic 

 and a Cretaceous flora. His researches among Pleistocene and recent deposits, 

 and the history which he has thence deduced of plant-migration and changes of 

 climate in Europe, are singularly interesting and suggestive. Though it is as 

 a student of fossil plants that Professor Nathorst is most widely known, it was 

 his keen eyes that detected for the first time casts of medusa; in the Lower Cambrian 

 rocks of Scandinavia. lu transmitting to him oui' Lyell Medal, your Excellency will, 

 I hope, accompany it with an expression of our best wishes for his health and 

 the long continuance of his scientific energy. 



Baron de Bildt, in reply, read tlie following letter which he had 

 received from Professor Nathorst : — 



' ' Allow me to express my heartiest thanks to the Council for the great and quite 

 unexpected honour which they have conferred upon me by the award of the Lyell 

 Medal. I regard this mark of approval of my geological and ])ala>ontological labours 

 as a most gratifying distinction, and it encourages me to hoj)e that, as the end of 

 my life approaches, I may have the satisfaction of feeling that I have not lived 

 altogether in vain. 



" My gi'atification at receiving this honour is increased by the fact that it is 

 associated with the name of Sir Charles Lyell. I vividly remember the enthusiasm 

 with which, as a mere youth, I read the Swedish edition of his admirable and 

 fascinating ' Principles of Geology ' ; and it is only right to add that it was this 



