522 Reports and Proceedings—Geological Society Centenary. 
REPORTS AND PROCHEHEDINGS- 
——_——— 
CENTENARY OF THE GroLocicaL Society or Lonpon. 
The Centenary Celebration of the Geological Society of London, to 
which we drew the attention of our readers in the GxrozoercaL 
Macazine for January last, pp. 1-3, and again in our September 
number, pp. 385-389, has come and gone. The numerous foreign 
and Colonial visitors have been hospitably entertained; geological 
excursions and visits to our Museums and Universities had previously 
been arranged for their honour and gratification. The President, 
Secretaries, Treasurer, and Council have all exerted themselves to 
render the stay of such distinguished guests as agreeable as possible, 
and it is to be hoped they will carry away with them pleasant 
memories of their English visit. 
On Thursday, the 26th September, a reception was held at the 
Institution of Civil Engineers at 11 o’clock, when the delegates from 
Foreign and British Scientific Societies and Academies offered con- 
gratulatory addresses to the President, Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., 
and he personally was presented with the Gold Medal of the 
Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, which was handed to him by 
C. J. Alford, Esq., F.G.S., on behalf of that body. 
At 8 o'clock the President read his address on ‘“‘The State of 
Geology at the lime of the Foundation of the Geological Society, 
in 1807.” He gave a sketch of our science a hundred years ago, 
and described the work of its first President, George Bellas 
Greenough, and its other founders. He referred to the labours of 
William Smith, known as ‘Strata Smith,’ and named by Sedgwick 
‘‘the Father of English Geology.” He pictured the state of 
knowledge regarding the structure and history of the earth as 
it was at the beginning of the last century, and of the conflict of 
opinions at the time which raged between the followers of Werner 
and Hutton, the Neptunists and the Plutonists. He showed how 
much the miner and mineralogist had to do with the origin of the 
science and the great advance of geological knowledge at the 
present time. 
A banquet was held in the evening at the Whitehall Rooms of the 
Hotel Métropole, at which 291 were present. After the President had 
proposed the toast of the King and the heads of Foreign Countries, 
Professor A. de Lapparent proposed that of the Geological Society, 
which was followed by speeches from Professor Lapworth and other 
distinguished Fellows and delegates. 
The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge on the 30th September 
and Ist October conferred respectively degrees as follows :—Oxford, 
D.Sc. honoris causd, Professor Charles Barrois, Professor Albert Heim, . 
Professor Alfred Lacroix, Dr. Hans H. Reusch, Professor Albrecht 
Penck, and Professor Geheimrath Ferdinand Zirkel. Cambridge, Se.D. 
honoris causd: Professor W. C. Brogger, Professor Hermann Credner, 
Professor L. Dollo, Professor A. de Lapparent, and Professor A. G. 
