184 Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



for continuous study. And when I look back at the earlier portion of this work, 

 I am quite dissatisfied with the survey. I must own to serious mistakes, particularly 

 that I had not sufficiently the coinage of my own opinions, and that I gave heed to 

 the outcry about new genera and species. That was a sad mistake, but I have 

 amended it in the later parts of my work. In this direction 1 have, however, far 

 more to perform. How much —or little — praise I may obtain thereby I know not, 

 but the fact that you have kindly given me this award as a recognition of my work 

 encourages me to confidently pursue my way. It is for such encouragement that 

 I most appreciate this award ; and I thank you sincerely for it. 



In presenting the Lyell Medal to Dr. George Jennings Hinde, 

 F.R.S., the President addressed him in the following terms : — 

 Dr. Hinde,— 



The Council of the Geological Society have awarded to you the Lyell Medal, with 

 the sum of twenty-five pounds, in recognition of your valuable researches in palaeon- 

 tology and geology, but more especially in reference to your discoveries of Fossil 

 Sponges and other minute bodies preserved in cherts, in various formations, and the 

 painstaking manner in which they have been elucidated by you. The experience you 

 gained when working as a student under Professor H. A. Nicholson, in the 

 University of Toronto, and later, under Professor K. A. vun Zittel, in the 

 University of Munich (where you obtained your degree of Ph.D., for a dissertation 

 on the Fossil Sponge- Spicules from the Chalk of Norfolk), was an excellent 

 beginning for your subsequent more ripened work. I need only refer to your 

 memoirs on Conodonts from the Cambro-Siliman and Devonian rocks of North 

 America, Scotland, and the West of England, and to yoiu- various papers, to show 

 the great value of the original work which you have done. In your " Catalogue of 

 the Fossil Sponges in the British Museum," and in your memoir on "British 

 Fossil Sponges," in the Palseontographical Society, you have given us works of 

 considerable importance. You have also published many other valuable papers 

 which have added much to our knowledge, and all recognize that you have placid 

 yourself in the foremost rank amongst those who have devoted themselves to the 

 study of minute fossil organisms. The medal could not be more worthily bestowed 

 than upon one who has always so earnestly laboured for the advancement of truth, 

 and I have very great pleasure in handing it to you. 



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



It gives me sincere gratification to receive at your hands the Lyell Medal, 

 remembering that it is intended, in the words of its liberal-minded founder, as 

 a mark of honorary distinction and as an expression that the recipient ' ' has deserved 

 well of the science." That so competent a tribunal as the Council of the Geological 

 Society regards my palfeontological work as meriting this recognition, is to me 

 a source of lively satisfaction. 



I can only regret that so much of the work which it is my aim to accomplish still 

 remains to be done : the encouragement which you have given me to persevere will 

 not, I hope, be without result, but whilst the field of investigation is ever widening 

 and the materials are constantly accumulating, the capacity to keep level with the 

 work becomes, with the lapse of time, a diminishing quantity. I wish here grate- 

 fully to acknowledge the large measure of help which has been freely given to me in 

 the course of my work by my brother geologists and on the part of the Society, and 

 more particularly my indebtedness to my friend and indefatigable colleague, Mr. 

 Howard Fox, in working out our joint paper on the Eadiolariau Kocks of Devon. 

 For the kindly, sympathetic, and very generous terms in which you, sir, have 

 referred to what I have done, I desire to express my warmest thanks. 



The President then handed a moiety of the balance of the 

 proceeds of the Lyell Geological Fund to W. J. Lewis Abbott, Esq., 

 addressing him as follows : — Mr. Abbott, — 



Some twenty years ago you read an important paper on the Formation of Agates 

 before the Geologists' Association, and since then you have contributed much 

 additional valuable information in regard to their origin. For many years you 

 have also been a careful and energetic collector of fossil remains, and of the 

 implements worked by early man ; and the remarkable collection shown by you 



