Geological Society of London, 181 



scriptions of two new species." By G. T. Bettany, Esq., B.A., B.Sc. 

 Communicated by Prof. T. McKenny Huglies, F.Gr.S. 



An account was given of remarkable vertebrate Tertiary skulls and 

 other remains brought from Upper Oregon by Lord Walsingham in 

 1872, and presented by him to the Woodwardian Museum, Cam- 

 bridge. The characters of the family of Ungulates (Oreodontid^e). 

 to which they belong, and of the genera of the family, were referred 

 to, and supplemented from examination of these remains. The genus 

 Merycochcenis, previously known only from teeth and portions of 

 jaws, was further defined and described from large skulls and portions 

 of skulls. The remarkable size of the temporal foss93, the form of 

 the zygoma, and especially its great posterior transverse crest, are 

 special points of interest. Finally two new species, M. tem;poralis 

 and If. Leidyi, were defined and described. 



II. — AisTJsruAL General Meetiistg. — February 18th, 1876. — John 

 Evans, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The Secretary read tlie Eeports of the Council and of the Library and Museum 

 Committee for the year 1875. The position of the Society was described as very 

 satisfactory, although, owing to various extraordinary expenses, the expenditure of 

 the year was considerably in excess of its income. The Society was stated to be in a 

 prosperous state, and the increase in the number of Fellows to be greater than in any 

 previous year. The Eeport also referred to the bequest by the late Sir Charles Lyell 

 of the die of a medal and of the sum of £2000, a bronze copy of the former and 

 the interest of the latter to be given annually or from time to time by the Council as 

 a mark of honorary distinction to some person or persons who shall be regarded as 

 having aided the progress of Geological Science. It was also announced that Dr. 

 Bigsby, F.R.S., F.Gr.S., has offered to found a bronze medal to be given in alternate 

 years as an incentive to the study of Geology. 



In presenting the "Wollaston Gold Medal to Professor Huxley, 

 F.R.S., F.G.S., the President addressed him as follows : — 



Professor Huxley, — It is a source of great satisfaction to me that it 

 should fall to my lot to place in your hands the "Wollaston Medal, 

 which has been awarded to you by the Council of this Society in re- 

 cognition of your distinguished services to geological science. 



Those services have been so great and are so universally acknowledged 

 that it seems hardly necessary to dilate upon them. For a period of 

 upwards of five-and-twenty years you have been engaged in biological 

 researches, which have resulted in throwing a flood of light upon the 

 structure, affinities, and development of organisms of every class, 

 from those so simple as to occupy the border territory between the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms up to the highest forms of mam- 

 malian life. 



Such researches cannot but have had a great and beneficial influence 

 on geological thought. But your services to geology and to this 

 Society are of a far higher and more direct character. T^ot only have 

 you furnished to our ' Proceedings ' numerous and valuable palseonto- 

 logical essays, but on three occasions, either as a President or as 

 representing the President of this Society, you have delivered anni- 

 versary addresses which are models of the philosophical exposition of 

 great geological principles, such as I sincerely wish it had been in my 

 power this afternoon to imitate. 



