174 Miscellanies, 



which preserves it from rust. When the iron has acquired the de- 

 sired tint, wipe it carefully, warm it a little and then rub it with 

 white wax, until there remains no longer any visible traces of the 

 wax. This renders its preservation complete. 



16. Medal of the Royal Society conferred on Mr. Lyell. — Mr. 

 Greenough, president of the Geological Society, at the annual meet- 

 ing in February, announced that one of the Royal Medals, was 

 awarded by the Royal Society, to Mr. Lyell, as the author of the 

 most important discoveries or series of investigations sufficiently es- 

 tablished or completed to the satisfaction of the council within the 

 last five years, and for which no honorary reward had been previous- 

 ly received. The council of the Royal Society, premising that 

 they decline to express any opinion on the controverted positions 

 taken in Mr. Lyell's work, entitled "Principles of Geology," state 

 the followino; as the grounds of their award. 



1. The comprehensive view which the author has taken of his 

 subject, and the philosophical spirit and dignity with which he has 

 treated it. 



2. The important service he has rendered to science by especial- 

 ly directing the attention of geologists to effects produced by exist- 

 ing causes. 



3. His admirable description of many tertiary deposits, several of 

 these descriptions being drawn from actual observations. 



Lastly, the new mode of examining the tertiary deposits, which 

 his labors have greatly contributed to introduce ; namely, that of de- 

 termining the relative proportions of extinct and still existing spe- 

 cies, with a view to discover the relative ages of distant and uncon- 

 nected tertiary deposits. 



A notice is then given by Mr. Greenough, of the improvements in 

 the third edition of Mr. Lyell's Geology, but we omit this notice be- 

 cause a fourth edition has recently appeared of which we have 

 already made mention. 



17. Maize Sugar. (O. P. H.) — Mr. Pallas has after repeated 

 experiments succeeded in procuring a crystallized sugar from the 

 stalks of Indian Corn, which bears a strong analogy to that extracted 

 from beet root. — Lond. Ath. April 11. 



18. Introduction of Burden's Boat into France. (O. P. H.) — 

 Baron Seguier, member of the Institute, has constructed a boat 



