Geological Society of London. 185 



a great extent, due to the changes which the constituent minerals of the older rock- 

 masses have undergone since their original formation. His classic papers on the 

 Archaean rhyolites of Shropshire and the Carboniferous dolerites of various parts 

 of this country furnish the clearest evidence of the truth of this principle, and in 

 several thoughtful and logical essays he has very ably enforced it. On a great 

 variety of other questions connected with Petrology his researches have added 

 largely to our knowledge ; and the fine collection of rock-sections now in the 

 National Museum, which were made by his own hands, bear striking testimony to 

 his industry and skill. 



Prof. BoNNEY, in reply, expressed his regret that Mr. Allport was unable to be 

 present to receive this Medal from the hands of the President, but said that he 

 found some consolation in the fact that he had thus an opportunity of most heartily 

 endorsing what had been said by the President as to the great value of Mr. Allport's 

 own work, and of the kind assistance which he was always so ready to afford to his 

 fellow-labourers in the field of Petrology. Prof. Bonney added that he should best 

 thank the Society by reading to them a letter received from Mr. Allport, in wliich 

 that gentleman wrote as follows : — " I much regret to inform you that I shall be 

 unable to attend the Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society in consequence 

 of the very unsatisfactory state of my health. I venture, therefore, to request that 

 you will kindly express to the Council my very grateful sense of the honour they 

 have conferred upon me by the award of the Lyell Medal. It is, I assure you, 

 most gratifying to me that the name of Sir Charles Lyell should be associated with 

 this award ; for I have not only ever regarded his character and scientific method 

 with the greatest admiration, but it is undoubtedly to the study of his works that 

 I am chiefly indebted for what little knowledge I possess of the principles of 

 geological science." 



The President next presented the Balance of the Proceeds of the 

 Lyell Geological Fund to the Rev. 0. Fisher, M.A., F.G.S., and said : 



Mr. Fisher, — The Council of the Geological Society has awarded to you the 

 balance of the Lyell Fund, in recognition of your great and long-continued services 

 to our science. Nearly forty years ago you commenced your well-known strati- 

 graphical investigations among the Newer Jurassics of Dorsetshire and the Older 

 Tertiaries of the Isle of Wight, your attention being subsequently directed to the 

 Pliocene and Post-Tertiary beds of East Anglia. At a very early period in your 

 career a predilection for the great problems of Physical Geology began to manifest 

 itself ; and for dealing with such problems your mathematical training gave you 

 obvious advantages. In these researches, however, which have been recorded in a 

 number of separate memoirs, worthily crowned by the publication six years ago of 

 your " Physics of the Earth's Crust," you have always maintained a just estimate 

 of the proper sphere and necessary limitations of the mathematical method of 

 treatment as applied to such problems. Speaking of the processes you have 

 chosen to employ, you truly remark in the preface to your well-known work, 

 " When it is recollected that, for the most part, we can assign only very hypothe- 

 tical values to our symbols, it Avould be affectation to seek close results, which 

 would, after all, have no greater value than those which claim to be only distant 

 approximations." In you we rejoice to see that the geologist has not been alto- 

 gether lost in the mathematician, and that you have always kept in mind in your 

 researches the weakness no less than the strength of the mathematical method. 



Mr. Fisher, in reply, said : — Mr. President, — It is no small gratification to me 

 that the Society, through its Council, has expressed approbation of what I have 

 done in the favourite study of a long life. I commenced geologizing almost before 

 I can remember, when my uncle, the Rev. George Cookson, taught me to collect 

 fossils in the cliffs of my native village of Osmington. My work in the field is 

 now finished, and I geologize in my arm-chair out of my inner consciousness, but 

 still, I hope, to some purpose. It appears to be rather these later attempts to un- 

 ravel some of the physical riddles of our science (although my earlier observations 

 in the field have not been forgotten) which have been thus handsomely recognized ; 

 and, indeed, for my own part I think what I have done in applying mathematical 

 methods to these geological problems has been my most useful labour. Neverthe- 

 less I feel assured that my earlier work in the field has been of much service to me ; 

 for no one can pretend to grapple usefully with the great problems of geology who 



