PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



ANKIJAL GENEEAL MEETING, 

 17th FEBRUARY, 1865. 



AWAUB OF THE "WoUASTON MeDAL. 



The Eeports of the Council and Committees having been read, 

 the President, "William Johk Hamilton, Esq., E.E,.S., delivered 

 the Wollaston Medal to Mr. Davidson, addressing him as 

 follows : — 



Mr. Davidson, — It is with great pleasure that I find myself 

 charged with the agreeable duty of handing to you this Medal, 

 which the Council have awarded to you, as already stated in their 

 Eeport, for the very important services you have rendered through 

 many years to the science of Geology, by your critical and philo- 

 sophical works on Eossil Brachiopoda, Without alluding to the 

 many valuable papers which you have contributed to this and 

 other Societies, I may safely say that the vast amount of scientific 

 work which you have performed for the Palseontographical Society, 

 would alone entitle you to this award. I find on referring to the 

 publications of that Society that, including the Monograph on 

 the Devonian Brachiopoda which you are now completing, you 

 have contributed no less than 121 plates, containing about 4300 

 figures, all of which you have drawn on stone yourself, and 

 nearly 850 pages of letter-press. But labour of this description 

 is not to be estimated by quantity; and although I have thus 

 ventured to allude. to its amount, your friends, and all who are 

 acquainted with these Monographs well know that their great 

 merit consists in the manner in which you have described the 

 fossils of the difierent formations, eliminating all useless specific 

 names, and showing the gradual progress of brachiopodous life 

 from one formation to another. You have shown us that all the 

 Palaeozoic formations have their characteristic faunae ; that in 

 the Permian, Carboniferous, and Devonian systems the great 

 majority of forms are peculiar to each system, and that only a 

 small proportion of species passes from one into the otlier. 



Nor can I avoid alluding to the great artistic skill you have 

 shown in your drawings of these various forms. Your perfect 

 knowledge of the features and physiological characters to be drawn 

 has given to these plates a value which they never could have 

 acquired had they been drawn by a mere mechanical copyist. But 



