XXI 



PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 

 15th FEBRUARY, 1856. 



Award of the Wollaston Medal and Donation Fund. 



After the Reports of the Council had been read, the President, 

 W. J. Hamilton, Esq., on delivering to Sir Roderick L Murchison 

 the Wollaston Medal, awarded to Sir William Edmond Logan, 

 addressed him as follows : — 



Sir Roderick Murchison, — It has already been announced 

 this day that the Council of the Geological Society have awarded the 

 Wollaston Palladium Medal for this year to Sir William Logan for 

 his valuable contributions to geological knowledge in his paper on 

 the origin and structure of the coal-beds in England, and his subse- 

 quent labours in Canada in carrying out the geological survey of 

 that country, and more particularly for the admirable geological 

 map of Canada constructed by himself from materials of his own 

 collecting, and exhibited at the great exposition at Paris last year. 

 The Council hope that Sir William Logan will continue the further 

 progress of this survey with the same energy which he has hitherto 

 shown, and that the Canadian legislature will not be slow in pro- 

 viding him with the necessary means to enable him to complete an 

 undertaking which reflects no less credit on the Government which 

 has so liberally supported him than on himself. 



In requesting you. Sir, to forward to Sir William Logan this 

 mark of their appreciation of his exertions, I may be permitted to 

 allude more fully to his merits and to some of the circumstances con- 

 nected with his survey of the Canadian provinces. Previous to the 

 year 1842, when Mr. Logan first commenced the geological survey 

 of Canada, he had already distinguished himself in this country by 

 several valuable papers communicated to this Society. In 1840* 

 he read an interesting paper *' On the character of the beds of clay 

 lying immediately below the coal-seams of South Wales, and on the 

 occurrence of coal-boulders in the Pennant grit of that district." 

 In this paper Mr. Logan pointed out the great importance of this 

 underclay varjdng from six inches to more than ten feet in thick- 

 ness, and considered such an essential accompaniment of the coal. 

 He also pointed out the important fact of the innumerable specimens 

 oi Stigmaria ficoides, by which these underclay beds are so strongly 

 marked. He was, I believe, the first to remark that, from the fact 



* Proceedings of the Geol. Soc. of London, vol. iii. p. 275. 

 VOL. XII. C 



