186 Reports and Proceedings — 



has not personally studied the actual phenomena. It is in this respect that the 

 greatest physicists of the day fail to give us the decided assistance which they 

 might do had they a more accurate knowledge of the questions to be solved. 



We pass on the torch from hand to hand. Some of the ideas which I have 

 tried to work out were suggested by conversations with honoured friends long gone 

 to rest — Sedgwick, Hopkins, Miller, Phillips, and others. May I hope that when 

 some one now young, in this assembly, receives a similar recognition of a similar 

 life's work, he may think of me as an intermediate link connecting him with those 

 earlier workers ? — a link which, whatever may be its intrinsic defects, and however 

 inferior the metal, you have seen fit to gild with the balance out of the munificent 

 legacy of the great Lyell. 



In presenting the Bigsby Gold Medal to Prof. Cliarles Lapworth, 

 LL.D., F.G.S., the President said :~ 



Professor Lapworth, — The late Dr. Bigsby established a Medal to be awarded to 

 one " not too old for further work, and not too young to have done much." That you 

 admirably comply with the latter quahfication every geologist knows ; but that your 

 age could possibly fall below the limit prescribed by the founder of this Medal, 

 any one not personally acquainted with you might be pardoned for doubting. In 

 studying the difficult, but, to geologists, very important group of the Graptolites, 

 in utilizing your knowledge of those remarkable fossils for unravelling the strati- 

 graphical problems presented by the contorted beds of the Scottish Borderland, 

 and in applying the valuable experience thus acquired to the far more difficult 

 examples of involved stratigraphy found in the county of Sutherland, you have 

 exhibited a happy blending of those powers of patient observation and of bold 

 generalization which are equally necessary for the man of science. Those who 

 know you best will feel the least doubt concerning those " favours to come " in the 

 shape of further work, the " lively sense " of which constitutes the staple of our 

 gratitude to you to-day. 



Prof. Lapworth, in reply, said : — Mr. President, — I am deeply sensible of the 

 distinction which the Council of the Geological Society has conferred upon me in 

 awarding me the Bigsby Medal ; and I am grateful, indeed, for the generous words 

 in which you have referred to my geological work. If anything could add to the 

 gratification with which I accept this award, it is that I receive it from the hands 

 of one who, since the reading of my first paper before this Society, has been a 

 staunch friend and a sympathetic adviser. I am afraid that the Members of this 

 Society are a little inclined to rate my geological labours somewhat higher than 

 they deserve, and I regard this Medal less as a reward for what I have done in the 

 past than as a stimulus and encouragement for the future. The pursuit of original 

 research has always appeared to me to be the highest and most pleasurable of 

 enjoyments— and none the less pleasurable, as it has for years been associated in 

 my mind with the unfailing interest, sympathy, and friendship accorded me by the 

 Members of this Society. My leisure and means for work of this kind are, how- 

 ever, but small ; but I am sure that there is no need for me to assure the Society 

 that such leisure and powers as I possess in the future will be wholly given to the 

 service of that science to which we are all devoted. 



The President then read his Anniversary Address, in which he 

 gave obituary notices of the following Fellows of the Society who 

 have died since the last anniversary : — The Earl of Enniskillen, 

 Sir Charles Bunbury, Mr. George Busk, Mr. John Arthur Phillips, 

 Mr. Henry Michael Jenkins, Dr. Harvey B. Holl, Mr. Caleb Evans, 

 the Kev. William Downes, Dr. Frederick Guthrie, and Mr. Arthur 

 Grote. Also of the late Foreign Member, Dr. Hermann Abich, and 

 of the deceased Foreign Correspondents, Professor Guiscardi and M. 

 Cornet. In the Address proper, the President, after congratulating 

 the Society on its present condition and prospects, and referring to 

 some of the more notable incidents in the history of Geological 

 Science during the past year, proceeded to discuss the past and pre- 



