182 Reports and Procecdings— 
you may yet achieve results such as shall even further justify the Council in the 
selection they have made. 
Professor MaskELYNE, in reply, said :—Mr. President, — 
In receiving at your hands the Wollaston Medal, I beg to thank the Council for 
the great honour they confer on me, and you, Sir, for the generous review in which. 
you have sketched my past scientific life. When my first surprise at the Award gave 
way to other thoughts, the first of them was one of gratification at the Council 
having this year determined to give the Medal for studies so nearly connected with 
Wollaston’s work, and to furthering which he rendered such distinguished services. 
To these you have alluded; and, in the kindly view you have taken of my work, I 
thank you for associating with it the names ot some of those to whom I was much 
indebted in its achievement. 
You have alluded, Sir, to the period—nearly a quarter of a century—that I was: 
working at the British Museum as head of the Mineral Department. I am proud of 
the work done in those years, and it was done, as most good work is done, by few 
hands—mostly by those of Mr. Thomas Davies and myself. Davies came to me a 
young man fresh from the sea, and absolutely innocent of any scientific knowledge. 
He died a few weeks ago, in many ways an accomplished man—the best judge of a 
mineral in this country, and an admirable petrologist—a worthy son of William 
Davies, and a worthy recipient of the Wollaston Fund, which was awarded him 
some years ago. And, Sir, 1 have to thank you for naming another of the helpers. 
in my work—Dr. Walter Flight. He, too, is no more; and there died in him one 
of the finest of laboratory manipulators and a very accomplished chemist. 
But one name I must supply, of a man who more than thirty years ago came to 
London for a visit and remained to work in the Museum for some time. I allude to 
Viktor von Lang, the partner of Joseph Grailich in the splendid work done by the 
Vienna school of crystallography and physics, and who had already then a European 
name. ‘hat period of my life, in the continual companionship of so finely trained 
a physicist and crystallographer, was like a second education. 
Then, Sir, you have alluded to the little school, if 1 may call it so, of Crystallo- 
graphy connected with my Chair at Oxford, and to the results of my teaching. The 
deduction of the laws of morphological and physical symmetry in crystals from the 
fundamental law of rational indices lay as a germ, though entirely undeveloped, 
in the Treatise and tracts of my late friend and master in the study of the science, 
Professor Miller of Cambridge. Modern crystallography has grown from that germ, 
and if I have helped in promulgating it m England through my lectures, I owe 
more to the students who attended those lectures than they owe to me in guiding 
them ; for they have always kept high the standard of crystallographic work m 
their investigations as in their teaching. Among these I must mention my old 
friend, W. J. Lewis, now Professor at Cambridge; and I need only allude to the 
remarkable memoirs on ‘‘Thermic Dilatation in Crystals’? and on the ‘‘ Optical 
Indicatrix’’ by the able mathematician who succeeded me at the British Museum, 
Mr. Fletcher, and to the fine work of his first assistant, Mr. Miers, to justify me 
in saying that if I have had any merit in directing such men upon their way, it is. 
to their own qualities that the success of that little Oxford school is due. Happily, 
if it were possible, would I divide that Medal among those who have so contributed 
to the winning of it, and retain as my own share the grateful remembrance that you, 
Sir, and the Council have thought me worthy to receive it, with the features stamped 
on it of that distinguished Englishman its Founder, the man to whom we owe the 
instrument—so simple, so accurate, and so indispensable—the reflection- goniometer ;. 
the instrument which made it possible for crystallography to become an exact science. 
Finally, in respect to the last part of your observations, | may say that of the 
many duties imposed on me by my country during the past few years, I am relieved. 
now of one of the weightiest, and shall be able, I trust, to devote much of the 
leisure of what may be left to me of life to the subjects which were heretofore my 
chief interest; and in cordially thanking you, Mr. President, and the Council for 
this, the greatest honour you can confer, I may assure you that it will be a great 
incentive to me still to strive to be worthy of it. 
The Presipent then handed the Murchison Medal to the Rev. 
Osmond Fisher, M.A., F.G.S., and addressed him as follows :—Mr. 
‘Fisher,— 
