Beporfs and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 185 



have conferred upon him. His long life has been enthusiastically devoted to 

 geological pursuits. Before he joined the Geological Survey, the scanty intervals 

 of leisure which he could snatch from the daily toil of his avocation were given 

 up to the search for fossils among the Carboniferous and Pleistocene deposits around 

 Glasgow. When he became Fossil-Collector to the Survey he was enabled to pursue 

 as his regular and ordinary employment what had before been the occupation of his 

 brief hours of recreation. And now, having passed the age-limit of the Civil 

 Service, and having retired on a small pension, he continues to work on in his old 

 way, and appears daily still in his accustomed place in the Survey Office, busy with 

 the search for micro-organisms among the silt and peat which he gathers from some 

 of the floors of vanished Arctic lakes around Edinburgh. The stores of knowledge 

 which he has slowly amassed have always been at the disposal of others who could 

 make good use of them. That his quiet, unobtrusive laboiu-s should have attracted 

 the notice and received the approbation of the Geological Society has been to him 

 a source of deep gratification. As long as life and strength remain, he will continue 

 the work which has been the chief pleasure and solace of his career. 



The President then presented the Lyell Medal to Lieut.-Gen. 

 C. A. McMahon, F.R.S., addressing him as follows : — General 

 McMahon, — 



Besides your petrological work in India you succeeded, by work in the field as well 

 as with the microscope, in tracing out the relations of the gneissose granite or central 

 gneiss of the Western Himalayas, and in proving its intrusive character as well as 

 its Tertiary age. You thereby threw much light on the theory of the origin of that 

 great range, to a knowledge of the Glacial geology of which you have also 

 contributed. 



Keturning to this country, you have given our Society several papers, chiefly on 

 the rocks of Cornwall and of Devon. In these you have contended that the 

 serpentine of the Lizard district is intrusive, that the banded structure of the 

 accompanying gabbros is due to fluxional movements, and that the granite of 

 Dartmoor is an intrusive igneous rock of the usual character. These papers and 

 various communications to the Geological Magazine show that, besides being 

 a skilled observer, you have the valuable adjunct of critical ability, combined, I need 

 hardly say, with all courtesy. Kindred Societies, too, have had the benefit of your 

 work, in the microchemical examination of minerals among other things. Nor has 

 your Indian experience remained unused. 



Labouring under the disadvantage of taking to the study of Geology comparatively 

 late in life, you have attacked it with the energy of a British soldier, and have fought 

 your way into the foremost ranks of our petrologists. 



Lieut.-Gen. McMahon, in reply, said : — Mr. President, — 

 I feel deeply the honour conferred upon me by the Council of the Geological 

 Society in awarding to me the Lyell Medal, as a recognition of my humble efforts to 

 advance the cause of Geological Science. The pleasure which this has given me 

 is greatly enhanced by the kind and flattering way in which you have spoken of 

 my work, and by the sympathy accorded to me on this occasion by the Fellows of the 

 Society. 



It is very gratifying for an amateur to have his work stamped with the hall-mark 

 by specialists who have made Geology the study of their lives. I have always 

 received help and encouragement from professional geologists, and had it not been for 

 the generous aid which they have invariably been ready to afford, I should not this 

 day have been a recipient of the Lyell Medal. 



In handing to Mr. Frederick Chapman, A.L.S., F.R.M.S., a moiety 

 of the balance of the proceeds of the Lyell Geological Fund, the 

 President addressed him in the following words : — Mi-. Chapman, — 



You have been an enthusiastic worker with the microscope for many years, and 

 half of the balance of the Lyell Fund has been awarded to you as a mark of our 

 regard for what you have done for the fossil Foraminifera and other Microzoa, much 

 of your work being published by the Royal Microscopical Society. 



Your earlier papers, written in conjunction with Mr. Sherborn, were based on the 

 London Clay of oui' immediate neighbourhood, and then on that of Sheppey. 



