186 Reports and Proceedings— 
F.R.S., F.G.S., and addressed him in the following words :—Dr. Carpenter.—The- 
Council of the Geological Society has awarded to you the Lyell Medal with (in com- 
pliance with the terms of the bequest) a portion of the proceeds of the Lyell Fund, 
in recognition of the great value of your investigations into the minute structure of 
invertebrate fossils and deep-sea researches. Your contributions ‘‘ On the Structure’ 
and Affinities of the Eozoon Canadense,’’ ‘‘On the Microscopic Structure of Num- 
mulina, Orbitolites, and Orbitoides,’’ published in our Journal, your numerous papers: 
on the intimate structure of shells, communicated to the Royal Society, and others: 
published in the ‘‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’’ your long-continued. 
work on Foraminifera, your communications on Oceanic Circulation and on Abyssal 
Life-forms, all testify to a life-long devotion to branches of natural knowledge bear- 
ing on that department of science, the cultivation of which is the raison-d’étre of 
this Society. J count it a pleasure, Dr. Carpenter, that it has devolved upon me to 
hand you this Medal. 
Dr. CAxPENTER, in reply, said :—Mr. President,—It is with no ordinary gratifica- 
tion that I receive from your hands the Medal of which the Council of the Geological 
Society has been pleased to think me deserving. For as the work of my life has been 
done almost entirely in the domain of biology, it has but incidentally brought me: 
within the wide area covered by geological science. Although familiar from very 
early years with its great fundamental ideas, and a deeply interested observer of its 
progress, I have never ventured to call myself a geologist. And it is, therefore, a 
distinction which I highly value, to be the recipient of so distinguished a token of 
appreciation on the’ part of those who are best qualified to judge of the importance 
of my work in its relation to geology. This distinction is yet more gratifying to me 
from its having been founded by one whom I have held in the highest honour from, 
my boyhood, when (as I well remember) I heard Charles Lyell spoken of as a young 
man who was advancing in the Geological Society doctrines of a most heretical kind, 
but was defending them so ably as to hold his own against the most weighty oppo- 
nents. The study of his ‘‘ Principles’’ was not only the delight of my youth, but a 
most valuable part of my scientific training; and the privilege of subsequent inter- 
course with him through nearly forty years was one which I ever highly esteemed ; 
for whilst it brought me under the immediate influence of his philosophic spirit, it 
also afforded me the continual stimulus of his kindly encouragement. I would recall 
a little incident which is doubly illustrative. When, in 1855, I made my monograph 
of the genus Orditolites the basis of a disquisition on the general subject of the 
variability of species (a doctrine early impressed on me by Dr. Prichard), I sent him 
a copy of the memoir (published in the Philosophical Transactions), with a sort of 
apology for haying tried to make so much out of what might be thought so small and 
trivial a subject; he replied with a most kindly approval of the object and manner 
of my work, adding, ‘‘ any single point is really the universe,’’—a remark whose’ 
pregnancy left an impression on my mind that time has only deepened. I cannot but 
esteem it a piece of singular good fortune that my association with my friend Prof. 
Wyville Thomson in the “ Lightning” Expedition of 1868, which was fitted out for 
the biological exploration of deeper sea-bottoms than had been then examined by the 
dredge, should have brought me into contact with a physical problem of the greatest 
interest, that of deep-sea temperature; and that the subsequent Expeditions of which 
the elucidation of that problem was a leading object have not only succeeded com-: 
pletely in all that it was hoped that they might accomplish, but have also brought) 
back new and valuable data for the solution of one of the most fundamental questions 
of modern geology,—the antiquity of the great existing distinctions between con- 
tinental and oceanic areas. In conclusion, I would assure the Geological Society that 
their generous recognition of my past labours will serve as an additional inducement 
to me to devote what may yet remain to me of time and ability to the completion of 
several researches, already far advanced, which will, I trust, be found to have no 
unimportant bearing on the future of geological science. 
In presenting one moiety of the balance of the Lyell Donation Fund to Mr. P. 
Herbert Carpenter, the PristpentT addressed him as follows:—Mr. P. Herbert: 
Carpenter,—The Council of the Geological Society, in awarding to you a portion 
of the balance of the proceeds of the Lyell Donation Fund, desires to express its 
sense of the great value of your researches into the structure and relationship of, 
several families of fossil Echinodermata. Your papers ‘‘On some little-known, 
Jurassic Crinoids,’’ ‘‘On the Cretaceous Comatule,’’ “On the Crinoids from the 
Upper Chalk,’’ and that read last session, ‘‘On Hybocrinus, Baerocrinus, and 
