182 Reports and Proceedings — 



carried away by the same powerful agent." This explanation of 

 the formation of certain valleys was given a few years ago by 

 Prof. Phillips/ and also by Mr, Boyd Dawkins, to accomit for the 

 origin of the Chedder Cliffs, in Somersetshire, and is certainly more 

 plausible than that of Mr. Mackintosh, which would give them a 

 marine origin. 



Mr. Mello gives a list of the minerals found in Derbyshire, and 

 accompanies his little work with a geological map and sections 

 reduced from the publications of the Geological Survey. Four plates 

 illustrate some of the characteristic fossils of the New Eed Sandstone, 

 Permian rocks, Coal-measures, and Mountain Limestone. H. B. W. 



Geological Society of London.. — I. Annual General Meeting.'^ — February 

 21st, 1873.— His Grace the Duke of Argyll, K.T., F.R.S., President in the Chair. 

 The Secretary read the Eeports of the Council, and of the Library and Museum ■ 

 Committee. The general position of the Society was described as satisfactory, and 

 the number of -Fellows was said to have essentially increased. 



In. presenting the "Wollaston Gold Medal to Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egerton, 

 Bart., F.R.S., F.G.S,, the President spoke as follows:— 



Sir Philip Egerton, — I consider myself fortunate in being the organ of the 

 Geological Society in presenting you with the "Wollaston Medal, which has been 

 awarded to you by the Council for the present year. The eminent services which 

 you have rendered to geology during a period now extending over forty years have 

 long been familiar to scientific men, and have given you more than a European 

 reputation. These services have been so great and so universally recognized, that 

 the only difficulty I now have is not in assigning grounds fox the vote which I have 

 the pleasure of announcing, but in explaining why it has been so long delayed. 

 That delay has been occasioned, I believe, solely by the fact that you have yourself 

 been so long an honoured member of the Council whose duty it is to consider the 

 claims of geologists for the honours of this Society ; and whatever influence you have 

 had in that body has doubtless been exerted in favour of others to the exclusion of 

 yourself. It is at least some compensation for the loss which the Council sustains in 

 your absence that it is now able to accord a recognition which has long been due. 

 The many papers which you have contributed to this Society from 1833 down to the 

 present time are a sufficient indication of the wide range of your observations. But 

 the special attention you have bestowed and the light you have thrown on the struc- 

 ture and affinities of fossil fishes and reptiles, have been of the highest value, and 

 have formed in the aggregate a most important contribution to our knowledge of the 

 history of organic life. I have the highest pleasure in now handing to you the 

 "Wollaston Medal. 



Sir Philip Egerton, in reply, said : — 



My Lord President, — I know not whether it is owing to the poverty of the English 

 language or to my unskilfulness in the use of it, but I am quite at a loss for words 

 adequate to express my appreciation of the great and unexpected honour conferred 

 upon me hy the award of the Wollaston Medal, and for appropriate terms to convey 

 to your Grace my acknowledgments for the kind, but too flattering terms you have 

 tlsed in communicating the decision of the Council ; and my embarrassment is in- 

 creased by the consciousness that, in comparison with those illustrious names which 

 already adorn the "Wollaston roll, I am quite unworthy of this great distinction. I 

 cannot presume to think that the humble contributions I have been enabled to make 

 to geological knowledge (and indeed to but a limited branch of it) can have been 

 weighed in the balance against the labours of many others on both sides of the Atlantic, 

 whose lives have been devoted to geological research, but who have not yet attained 

 the distinction awarded to me to-day. In comparison with these my claims are quite 



1 See Geol. Mao. 1864, Vol. I., p. 229. 



"^ A brief notice of this meeting appeared in the March Number, p. 132. 



