141 



PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 



26th FEBRUARY, 1846. 



Award of the Wollaston Medal and Donation Fund. 



After the Reports'*' had been read, and before delivering the 

 Medal to Dr. Fitton to forward to Mr. Lonsdale, the President 

 said : — 



Gentlemen, — You have been informed that the Council have 

 awarded the Wollaston Palladium Medal and the proceeds of the 

 Donation Fund for the present year to Mr. William Lonsdale, for his 

 many valuable contributions to Geological science, and more espe- 

 cially for his descriptions of the Corals in the Silurian System and 

 Devonian Rocks, for his late report in the first volume of our Journal 

 on the Corals from the Tertiary formations of North America, and for 

 his description of the Corals from the Palaeozoic formations of Russia. 



It would have been gratifying to you all, as I am sure it would 

 have been to myself, to have seen our old and valued friend present 

 in this room, to receive this acknowledgement of the high estimation 

 in which he is held by that Society with which he was so long con- 

 nected, and of the great value they attach to his important zoologi- 

 cal and paloeontological researches since his retirement. But, I am 

 sorry to say, it is the state of his health which prevents his being 

 here ; and I fear there is too much reason to believe that his strength 

 would scarcely have been equal to the exertion and excitement of 

 coming to London on such an occasion. But I cannot help sus- 

 pecting that another cause has not been wholly inoperative, — I mean 

 that singular modesty, that unwillingness to bring himself forward, 

 which, while it adds a grace and dignity to his character in the eyes 

 of those who know him best, conceals from many his great accomplish- 

 ments as a man of science, and his powerful and original mind. His 

 absence therefore, in one sense, is not to be regretted ; for it enables 

 me to give utterance to expressions which I could not have ventured 

 to use in his presence, from the certain knowledge that in doing so 

 I should have given him pain. 



Mr. Lonsdale was elected Curator of our Museum in 1829; he 

 was well known by many to possess qualities that eminently fitted 

 him for the oflftce, and early in the spring of that year he had con- 



* Tliese Reports, &c. are inserted at the commencement of the present volume 

 of the Proceedings and Journal. 



