﻿ANNIVERSARY MEETING. DONATION FUND. Xxi 



I could almost have wished that this award in my favour had 

 been deferred to a future year, for my labours are still in progress, 

 and a work is now in the press (alluded to, Mr. President, by your- 

 self,) that would have appeared before this time, but for two painful 

 accidents, which, during the greater part of the last two years, have 

 cut me off from any continued efforts in the field of Geology. This 

 work will contain a description by Professor M c Coy of all the new 

 palaeozoic fossils in the Cambridge collection, with a preliminary dis- 

 sertation by myself on the grouping and classification of the older 

 rocks of England. But, alas ! Gentlemen, I dare not speak of the 

 future with any confidence, for I know that my last three or four 

 years have been unproductive, and I know that in a very little more 

 than four years, should life be granted me, I shall reach that limit 

 of man's age, beyond which his days are "but labour and sorrow." 

 Let me rather then be grateful for the happiness I have enjoyed 

 during the many years of active and intellectual communion I have 

 been permitted to hold with the Members of this Society. 



I am indeed reluctant to think that the Medal you have this day 

 awarded me, is an honorary tribute to one who is at length retiring 

 from your service. I wish not, and mean not to retire, for my task 

 is yet undone ; and if, through the goodness of Providence, my life 

 be lengthened out in sound health of mind and body, I hope still to 

 carry on my work and to be still your grateful friend and active 

 fellow-labourer. 



Whatever may befall myself during the few coming years of my 

 life, believe, Gentlemen, in this heartfelt expression of my thanks ; 

 and believe me sincere in my wishes and aspirations for the great 

 and continued progress of this Society, and for the happiness and 

 honour of all its Members. 



The President then addressed the Foreign Secretary as follows : — 

 Mr. Bunbury, — The Council have resolved that the Balance of 

 the Proceeds of the Wollaston Donation Fund for the present year 

 be awarded to M. Joachim Barrande, for the purpose of assisting him 

 in the publication of his valuable work on the ' Silurian System and 

 Fossils of Bohemia.' 



The reputation of M. Barrande as a palaeontologist was already 

 established by his Memoirs on the Brachiopoda and Graptolites of 



