Geological Society of London. 181 
and the balance in favour of the Society at December 31st, 1892, 
amounted to £327 19s. 10d. 
The Report of the Council further referred to the successful claim 
and recovery from the Commissioners of H. M. Inland Revenue 
of four years’ taxes under Schedules A and C, and in conclusion 
announced the awards of the various Medals and proceeds of 
Donation Funds in the gift of the Society. 
The Report of the Library and Museum Committee enumerated 
the additions made during the past year to the Society’s Library, 
announced the completion of 22 previously imperfect sets of serials, 
and the continuation of the work of registering the type-specimens 
in the Museum by Mr. ©. Davies Sherborn. 
In presenting the Wollaston Medal to Professor Nevil Story 
Maskelyne, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., the Prestpenr addressed him in 
the following words :—Professor Maskelyne,— 
The Council of the Geological Society have this year awarded to you the Wollaston 
Medal, in recognition of your researches in those branches of science which the 
Founder himself cultivated with so much success. We do not forget that Wollaston 
inyented the reflecting goniometer, and that no one has been more skilful in the use 
of that instrument than yourself. Thirty years ago you were enabled, in this way, 
to make an exact determination of the form of the minute crystals of Connellite ; 
and the later discovery of larger crystals of that mineral has only served to confirm 
the accuracy of your original determination. During the thirty-five years that you 
have occupied the Chair of Mineralogy at Oxford you have ever insisted on symmetry 
as being the essential feature of the crystalline systems. Contemporaneously with 
your professional duties you devoted twenty-three years of your life to the develop- 
ment of the mineral collections at the British Museum. These collections had 
for some years previously been without a mineralogist in charge. With the co- 
operation of the late Mr. Thomas Davies, your apt pupil and assistant, the collection 
was rearranged ; and when you left the Museum to enter Parliament, in 1880, the 
classification of the entire collection had reached a high pitch of perfection, while 
the collection itself had been in many respects enriched. 
The investigation of extra-telluric bodies has long since attracted your attention, 
though the want of a chemical laboratory must have been felt by one who had 
already proved, from his numerous chemical papers, the interest he took in that 
science. Failing this, you sought to recognize the individual minerals by the aid of 
the microscope, working on thin sections—a method now universally adopted in 
the study of terrestrial rocks. In this way, thirty years ago, you were enabled 
to determine many of the most important ingredients of meteorites, by means of the 
relation of the axes of optic elasticity to known crystallographic lines. - The micro- 
scope was further applied to the mechanical separation of the different mineral 
ingredients of a meteorite, and the existence of such minerals as enstatite and 
bronzite demonstrated. Your research on the mineral constituents of the Busti 
meteorite will long remain an example to future workers. Further, in conjunction 
with the late Dr. Flight, you described the minerals of the diamantiferous rock of 
South Africa, suggesting that an enstatite rock, at points of contact with carbona- 
ceous shales, was probably the original home of the diamond—an explanation which 
is now generally accepted. 
Although for several years past your energies have found employment in another 
direction, we may venture to hope that your interest in those branches of science 
which Wollaston was desirous of promoting is in no wise lessened ; and we trust that 
