Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 183 



Bristol Coalfield, and the Mendips, to the geology of Fakenham and the country 

 around Norwich (where your grandfather, Samuel Woodward, the " Norfolk 

 Geologist," laboured so earnestly 70 years ago), to Essex and the neighbouring 

 drift-covered counties ; from the Jurassic areas of Britain south of the Humber to 

 the far -distant Jurassic areas of Sutherland and Skye — all these and more have, in 

 turn, claimed your careful attention. Besides your very numerous Survey memoirs, 

 maps, and sections, all prepared with much skill, you have given us a most helpful 

 work, " The Geology of England and Wales." When President of the Norwich 

 Geological Society, the Norfolk Naturahsts' Society, and the Geologists' Association, 

 you gave important addresses, and you have contributed numerous separate geological 

 papers, read here and elsewhere. In addition, I must especially refer to the ever- 

 ready help which you afford, in your office at Jermyn Street (as resident geologist), 

 to all those who call upon you for information, help which has rightly earned for you 

 a large circle of grateful friends. 



Mr. Woodward, in reply, said : — Mr. President, — 



In thanking you, sir, and the Council of this Society, for the high honour which 

 you have now conferred upon me, I cannot help feeling that you have regarded with 

 great genei-osity whatever I have been able to accomplish. I would pass by the 

 official or professional work. That has always been a pleasure : it has also been 

 a duty. And I would rather believe that you have taken more into consideration the 

 extra-official or amateur work which has been the labour of leisure hom's. This 

 much I would like to say, in reference to the second ecUtion of my " Geology of 

 England and Wales," that the impulse which led to its production was the ambition 

 to render some service ; and to do this in the way I desired was to act somewhat 

 independently, for I received no encouragement from publishers. That their 

 predictions were fully justified adds considerably to the gratification with which, 

 sir, I now receive this mark of distinction and approval from your hands. 



The President then handed the balance of the proceeds of the 

 Murchison Geological Fund to S. S. Buckman, Esq., addressing 

 him as follows: — Mr. Buckman, — 



Following in the steps of your father, Professor James Buckman, you have 

 devoted many years to the elucidation of the Palasontology and Geology of the Lower 

 Oolitic rocks of Dorset aud neighbouring counties. In palaeontology, you have 

 dealt with the Pelecypods, the Brachiopods, and the Ammonites of the Inferior Oolite 

 and Bajocian, the last group especially in the monograph now being published by the 

 Palfeoutographical Society. Seeing that accurate work in pahieontology could not 

 be accomplished without equally detailed stratigraphy, you have investigated, with 

 a minuteness before unattempted for Jurassic rocks, the unravelling of their 

 geological history, aud the Society has thus received from your hands au important 

 series of papers, amongst which I may mention those on the Cotteswold, Midford, 

 and Yeovil Sands (1889) ; on the sd-called Upper-Lias Clay of Down Cliffs (1890) ; 

 on the Bajocian of the Sherborne District: its Relation to Subjacent and Super- 

 jacent Strata (1893) ; and on the Bajocian of the Mid- Cottes wolds (1895). To 

 show their appreciation of the important work which you have already accomplished, 

 and in the hope that you may continue to work on the lines which have yielded 

 results so excellent, the Council have felt much pleasure in awarding you the 

 Murchison Fund. 



Mr. Buckman replied as follows: — Mr. President, — 



I scarcely know how to thank you for the honoxir which you have done me in the 

 presentation of this award, and for the far too favourable manner in which you have 

 spoken of such scientific work as I have been able to accomplish. You have very 

 kindly alluded to my stratigraphical work, and have noticed its minuteness. As 

 regards this part of my labours I have a clear conscience : it was undertaken for the 

 purpose of understandiug the genealogy of Ammonites, and its minuteness is an 

 absolute necessity thereto. But when I think of the palseontological work to which 

 you have referred, I feel considerable cause for dissatisfaction. Now that some nine 

 yearly portions have appeared in the volumes of the Palteontographical Society, I 

 ought to be approaching the end of my labours, but I find that I am actually farther 

 from that desirable attainment than when I began, while I have far less opportunity 



