Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 185 



at the recent conversazione in the rooms of the Society testifies to your keen and 

 accurate discrimination. Your researches, as shown in your paper on the Ossiferous 

 Fissures in the Valley of the Shode near Ightham, published in the Quarterly 

 Journal of the Society in 1894, and ia other papers published in the Proceedings of 

 the Geologists' Association, the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, and 

 Natural Science, have greatly added to the faunas, and therefore to our 

 knowledge of the history, of the Pleistocene and early Post- Pleistocene periods. 



The Council in making this award desire not only to express to you their 

 appreciation of the work which you have already done, but hope that it may be 

 an incentive to further researches. It gives me much pleasure to place this award in 

 your hands. 



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



T am deeply grateful to you, sir, and the Council of the Geological Society 

 collectively, for the great honour conferred upon me in thus appreciating the results 

 of my labours ; and to you, sir, personally for the very kind, appreciative words 

 with which you have supplemented it. There is, doubtless, a great reward in store 

 for all those who in any -way contribute to the stock of human knowledge — a reward 

 ■which comes with the discovery of anything new. But, after all, there is something 

 which is perhaps even greater to frailly constituted humanity than that : it is to 

 receive such tangible proofs as this that others admit the value of one's labours. It 

 comes as a potent antidote for weeks and months of almost barren research, 

 a grateful compensation for midnight oil expended and pecuniary losses sustained, 

 and a wholesome incentive to renewed energy in the future. I am all the more 

 proud of the honour conferred upon me, in that it is associated with the name of the 

 great ambassador of " the causes now in operation " ; for assuredly, if there be one 

 branch of geology more than another calculated to make one realize the applicability 

 of these, it is that in which I have been chiefly engaged, where we stand one foot on 

 to-day and the other on yesterday, and note, with equal distinctness and certainty in 

 each, the effects not only of sea and storm, but of the very zephyrs. But while my 

 labours are thus rewarded, it must ever be remembered how much the value of ray 

 Pleistocene work has been enhanced by the co-operation of my esteemed colleague 

 Mr. E. T. Newton, and I gladly welcome this opportunity of publicly expressing my 

 deepest obligations and warmest thanks to him for his great and kindly assistance 

 during the last sixteen or eighteen years. In conclusion, I can only express the hope 

 that the remaining years of my life, stimidated anew by this award, will be spent in 

 the cause which I have so much at heart, and that the result of my labours may 

 continue not only to give me pleasure, but prove interesting and profitable to others. 



The President then handed the other moiety of the balance of 

 the proceeds of the Lyell Geological Fund to Joseph Lomas, Esq., 

 addressing him as follows : — Mr. Lomas, — 



The Council of this Society have this year awarded to you a moiety of the 

 proceeds of the Lyell Fund in testimony of the value of your work, especially in 

 regard to the glacial geology of the neighbom-hood of Liverpool, and of areas in 

 North Wales, upon which you have written no less than ten papers between the years 

 1886 and 1896. To enable you to check the accuracy of your conclusions you have 

 also made a study of glaciation in Switzerland and the Faeroe. As showing that 

 you have not neglected other branches of geology, I may mention also your paper on 

 the Basaltic Dykes of Mull in 1887, and on Fossil Plants from the Carboniferous in 

 1895. Your recent election as President of the Liverpool Geological Society testifies 

 to the esteem in which you are held by your fellow -workers in that city, where as 

 a special Lecturer on Geology at University College you are responsible for most 

 important geological teaching. It is now my privilege to be the means of handing 

 you this award, with the hope that it may aid you in your further researches. 



Mr. Lomas replied in the following terms : — Mr. President, — 



You have expressed, in much too kind words, your appreciation of my work in 

 Glacial Geology. Recognizing that the first duty of a student is to collect accurate 

 data, I have done my best to observe and record the phenomena in my own district. 

 If these observations have contributed, even in a small degree, towards the elucida- 

 tion of a very difiicult problem, I am amply rewarded. 



