4 Eminent Living Geologists — 



On February 20th, 1880, the Council of the Geological Society 

 conferred upon Mr. John Evans the Lyell Medal, "in recognition of 

 his distinguished services to geological science, especially in the 

 department of Post-Tertiary Geology." In presenting it. Dr. H. C. 

 Sorby, the President, said: "I can well remember the time when 

 there appeared to be an almost impassable gulf between antiquaries 

 and geologists, but you and your fellow-workers have so completely 

 bridged over the gulf that we now can scarcely say where archaeology 

 ends and geology begins, nor whether to rank or value you most as an 

 antiquary or ageologist" (Geol. Mag., 1880, p. 180). 



The announcement in the Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History for April, 1862, of the discovery made bj^ Dr. Haberlein, in 

 the Lithographic Stone of Bavaria, of "a fossil reptile clothed in 

 feathers," which Professor Wagner named Griphornis longicaudatiis, 

 attracted much attention. This was followed by a notice by Professor 

 H. von Meyer a month later, giving an account of the same 

 fossil and naming it Arcliceopteryx Uthographica. The specimen 

 was acquired for the British Museum in 1862, and Mr. John 

 Evans was greatly interested in it as possibly aifording evidence 

 of a form intermediate between Birds and Reptiles. The suggested 

 reptilian-like characters were based upon the free-clawed phalanges 

 of the wings, and the long lizard-like tail, composed of 20 free 

 unanchylosed vertebrae, but the head was wanting. Owen, in 

 describing it, adhered to the fossil being a true bird by the fact that 

 it was clothed in feathers and appeared to have the foot of a true 

 perching bird, and he insisted that the feathers proved the existence 

 of a heali for preening its plumage. 



Mr. Evans drew attention to a rounded body which in the counterpart 

 slab was represented by a hollow lined by a thin brown bony layer 

 (apparently the cranial cavity). In order to elucidate this he proceeded 

 to procure the heads of a very large number of wild birds, such as the 

 Magpie, Hook, Crow, Gull, Jay, Woodcock, Snipe, etc. Casts were 

 made by him of the brain cavities of these, and the skulls bisected so 

 as to expose the cast of the upper surface of the two hemispheres of the 

 brain and to show the hollow of the cranium. He also called attention 

 to a small broken and detached javi^ bearing five teeth upon its dentary 

 border, resting on the same slab. Professor Owen refers to the first as 

 "a concretionary nodule, which may he, as suggested by Mr. John 

 Evans, part of the cranium with the cast of the brain of Archxopteryx " 

 (Phil. Trans., 1863, p. 46). But he dismisses the jaw as a "pre- 

 maxillary bone and impression of same, resembling that of a fish." 



Mr. John Evans laid his case by letter with drawings before 

 Professor Dr. Hermann von Meyer in 1863, who replied : "I hazard 

 no opinion on the cast of the skull ; much more important is the jaw." 

 " Teeth of this sort I do not know in the Lithographic Stone. They 

 are not like the teeth of Pterodactyles. The nearest likeness is to 

 Acrosaurus Frischmanni, Meyer, a reptile from the Lithographic Stone 

 of Bavaria." He goes on to compare the teeth with Pleurosaurus 

 Meyeri and with Geosaurus Soemmeringi, Meyer, which he says are 

 much longer, and ends by observing " From this it would appear that 

 the jaw really belongs to Arclmopteryxy 



