PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 

 21sT FEBEUARY, 1862. 



Award of the Woliaston Medal. 



The Chairman, Sm Roderick Murchison, then addressed Mr. 

 GoD^viN- Austen as follows : — 



Mr. Godwin- Austen, — ^Yaluing as I do the services you have 

 rendered to geological science, I consider myseK very fortunate in 

 occupying this chair to perform, the duty of the President in his 

 unavoidable absence, by placing the "WoUaston Medal in your hands. 

 Although there are two points in your numerous WTitings in which 

 I have differed from you, \dz., your theory of the synchronism of the 

 Upper Silurian and Devonian rocks, and your view of the lacustrine 

 or terrestrial nature of the Old Red Sandstone, yet even in these 

 views I admire your originahty of thought; whilst on all other 

 grounds I am bound to say that I am convinced of the soundness of 

 your speculations. 



In truth, all your associates, as w^ell as myseK, are aware that you 

 have distingiushed yourself during a long series of years by your 

 successful inquiries into the former changes of land and water from 

 the Palaeozoic age to modern times. 



Persistently keeping that great object in view, you have put forth 

 weU-foundcd hj-potheses, based on actual and numerous observations, 

 which have raised the philosophical character of our science. Your 

 sedulous study of the organic remains, as weU as the materials of the 

 beds themselves of each formation which you have examined, and 

 your laborious tracings of various lines of chslocation, have all been 

 made subservient to that one great end ; and I am therefore proud to 

 announce that you are this day justly rewarded with the WoUaston 

 Medal as being pre-eminently the physical geographer of bygone 

 periods. 



In your latest remarkable researches, you have, by fair inductive 



