Geological Society of London. 179 



Shropshire was -written during last year. I think it is a subject for congratulation, 

 not only within the ranks of the Geological Survey but outside them, that such 

 candid statement of fact and such free discussion of opinion are, under its present 

 direction, not only permitted but encouraged amongst the officers of that Survey. 



In handing the Murchison Medal (awarded to Prof. Dr. Gustav 

 Lindstrom, For.Memb.G.S.) to Dr. G. J. Hinde, V.P.G.S., for trans- 

 mission to the recipient, the President said : — Dr. Hinde, — 



The Council of the Geological Society have unanimously awarded the Murchison 

 Medal to Prof. Gustav Lindstrom, F.M.G.S., of the State Museum in Stockholm, 

 in recognition of his long and valuable services, extending over 46 years, devoted to 

 the description of the fossil faunas of the Silurian System, in the classical district of 

 Gotland. Thirty years ago Prof. Lindstrom settled the structure and affinities of 

 that truly remarkable group of the Operculated Corals (1866, 1871, 1883) and the 

 curious Brachiopod genus Trimerella (1868) ; he has dealt with the Silurian Corals 

 of North Russia, Siberia, and North China, and described the Triassic and Jurassic 

 fossils of Spitzbergen. His great work on the Silurian Gasteropoda and Pteropoda 

 of Gotland merits special and honourable mention ; as also his paper on the singular 

 Cephalopod Ascoceras (1888-90). By his discovery of a fossil air-breathing Scorpion 

 {FalcBophonus) in the Silurian of Gotland he assisted to carry back land-animals 

 into Silurian times. His Catalogue of Silurian Crustacea and of Swedish Fossils, 

 and his laboui's to illustrate both the Crinoidea and Trilobita of Sweden (left 

 unpublished by Angelin), must also be mentioned. Nearly all these memoirs have 

 been simultaneously issued in Swedish and English, so that Prof. Lindstrom" s works 

 form really an integral part of our own literature. 



These are, after all, but a few out of the many important researches which have 

 occupied Prof. Lindstrbm's long and laborious life. He is already a Foreign 

 Member of our Society ; now the Council desire to add the further recognition of 

 his distinguished services to Geology by sending him this appropriate Medal, with 

 their heartiest good wishes and regards. 



Dr. Hinde, in reply, said : — Mr. President, — 



I esteem it a privilege to have been asked by my friend. Prof. Lindstrom, to 

 represent him on this occasion. He desires me to express his regret at his inability 

 to be present in person, and he has forwarded to me a letter conveying his 

 acknowledgments, which reads as follows : — 



"Allow me to express my deeply-felt gratitude for the honour which the Council 

 of the Geological Society have bestowed on me by the award of the Murchison 

 Medal. 



" It would not have been possible for me to receive a more appropriate and 

 gratifying mark of approval of my labours in Silurian Palaeontology than this, as 

 I may, in truth, say that I owe to Sir Roderick Murchison the first stimulus to my 

 pala3ontological studies. In 1845, when I was quite a boy, much wondering at the 

 marvellous things I saw enclosed in the limestone-rocks of my native island of 

 Gotland, Sir Roderick, accompanied by M. de Verneuil, visited the island and 

 ranged its strata, along with the other old ' transition rocks ' of Sweden, in his 

 newly-founded realm, ' Siluria.' This fact acted on me as a fresh revelation, and 

 indicated the path upon which to proceed. 



"Later on in life, after having profited by the vast learning of my venerable 

 friend and teacher, Prof. Sven Loven, I visited London to study your splendid 

 collections, and Sir Roderick was the first to show them to me and to introduce me 

 to the Meetings of your illustrious Society. Thirty-four years are gone by since 

 then, but who could ever forget the words heard within its precincts from such men 

 as Lyell, Horner, Owen, Murchison himself, and other heroes of the science ? 



" My gratification at receiving the honour of the Murchison Medal is the more 

 enhanced by its coming through your hands, Mr. President, whom I can claim as the 

 oldest living acquaintance that I have in England, and to whom I moreover owe 

 a great debt of gratitude for much kindness shown during a period of more than 

 three decades." 



May I be allowed to add, Mr. President, that, though Prof. Lindstrom's services 

 to Palaeontology — of which you have spoken so sympathetically — date back to a 

 period nearly fifty years ago, yet they are by no means concluded, for since the 



