Geological Society of London. 183 



Survey, I have also devoted my leisure time to the study of various questions iu 

 Pleistocene and Pliocene Natural History. This award of the Murchison Fund will 

 now enable me to undertake a more thorough examination of many of the less-known 

 deposits. 



The President next presented the Lyell Medal to Mr. William 

 Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S., and addressed him as follows : — 



Mr. Pengelly, — The Council of the Geological Society has awarded you the Lyell 

 Medal and a sum of twenty guineas from the Fund in recognition of your lifelong 

 labours in the cause of geology, and more especially of your investigations in those 

 caverns of the south-west of England by means of which our knowledge of the con- 

 dition of Britain during the latest epoch of geological history has been so largely 

 augmented. To exhume the contents of a cavern, not only the lair of wild beasts, 

 but also an abode of men in those ages when, to quote the words of the old Greek 

 tragedian, 



" Like tiny ants they dwelt in sunless caves," 1 

 requires the exercise of unwearied patience and, in addition, of extensive knowledge 

 and critical acumen. By the labours of the Committee, of which you were the hands 

 and the eyes, and at least a fair proportion of the compound brain, Mr. MacEnery's 

 long-neglected discovery in Kent's Hole was placed beyond all dispute, and the con- 

 tents of that cavern, its succession of deposits, its relics of extinct animals, and its 

 tools of stone and bone, denoting more than one stage of civilization, have been made 

 known to the world. 



In like way the virgin ground of the Brixham cave was investigated, and its 

 valuable contents have been rendered accessible to students. All this you have done, 

 not as the fruit of secured leisure, but in the intervals of a busy life, of which, in the 

 full sense of the words, time was money ; and you began this work at a period when, 

 owing to mistaken prejudices, you incurred no small risk of obloquy and personal loss. 

 Tour work at Bovey Tracey and your papers on the later geology of Devonshire and 

 Cornwall are too well known to need more than a passing allusion ; the Torquay 

 Museum and the Transactions of the local societies will be a lasting monument of 

 your zeal in stimulating scientific researches in the neighbourhood of your home. 

 There is a peculiar fitness in the award to you of this Medal, a memorial of the fearless 

 and illustrious author of the " Principles of Geology " and of the "Antiquity of Man." 

 I esteem myself exceptionally fortunate in being commissioned to place it in your hands, 

 and being thus enabled to testify my regard for so valued and genial a friend. 



Mr. Pengelly, in reply, said that he could not conceal from himself, and did not 

 wish to conceal from the Fellows, the gratification that he felt at receiving this award. 

 He had studied Geology for some fifty years, although he had appeared but little in 

 the rooms of the Geological Society, his publications on geological subjects having 

 been chiefly contributed to those local Societies in whose neighbourhood his researches 

 had been carried on. His gratification at this award compensated for much obloquy, 

 especially as it bore the name of an old and loved friend with whom he had worked 

 much and often. No doubt the "founder of the Medal intended that its award should 

 serve not only as a reward for work done, but as a stimulant to further exertion. It came 

 to him so late in the day, however, that he could hardly hope to do very much more ; 

 but although he himself might not be urged by it to renewed efforts, the stimulus 

 might act vicariously, as the knowledge that he had received this recognition of such 

 services as he had rendered to science would doubtless get spread abroad in Devon- 

 shire, and would probably serve as an incitement to many local workers to persevere 

 in their studies. 



In handing the Balance of the Proceeds of the Lyell Donation 

 Fund to Dr. Henry Woodward, F.Pb.S., F.G-.S., for transmission to 

 Mr. D. Mackintosh, F.G.S., the President addressed him as follows : — 



Dr. "Woodward, — I have much pleasure in placing in your hands, as representing 

 Mr. Mackintosh, the balance of the Lyell Donation Fund awarded to him by the 

 Council of the Geological Society. In him we have a second instance of the way in 

 which, through an untiring zeal for science, the rare intervals of a hard- worked life 



1 ^schylus, Prom. Vinct. 491. 



