XXVIU PEOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



reasoning, brought to the mind's eye of geologists the high probability 

 of tlie extension of Upper Palaeozoic, if not of Carboniferous strata 

 beneath the surface of the Tertiary and Cretaceous rocks surrounding 

 our metropoKs ; and you have thus made the value and importance 

 of oui' science apparent even to the commercial classes of the country. 

 Pray receive this Medal as the hearty expression of our approba- 

 tion ; and may it stimulate you to extend to the study of the subsoil 

 of those foreign lands into which you are about to travel the same 

 energy and talent which enabled you to elaborate so ingeniously and 

 so skilfully the former changes of land and water over so large an 

 area in the west of Europe, 



Mr. Godwin- Atjsten, on receiving the Medal, thus replied : — 



I have so frequently been a member of the Council of this Society 

 when the award of the AVollaston Medal has been under considera- 

 tion, I so well know how many qualifications have been taken into 

 account in its adjudication, that I am enabled to appreciate in the 

 fullest the very high honour which I now receive, at your hands, 

 from this Society. I am proud of such a record of the estimation 

 in which the part which I have taken in our common work has been 

 held by you. Put when I speak in this way of the Wollaston Medal, 

 I beg that you will feel assured, and by no idle form of words, that 

 I should almost regret the honour if I thought for a moment that I 

 could thereby deceive myself. I know how very unequal are the 

 degrees of merit of those who receive the same honours ; and I can 

 myself, as^well as anybody, draw the broad line which must separate 

 me from others whom you have already placed in that distinguished 

 list. 



You have been pleased. Sir, to refer to some of those contributions 

 which have been favourably considered by the Council. I will not 

 follow you over that ground ; but perhaps I may be allowed to say 

 this much, that in every contribution I have endeavoured to work 

 out and apply what has been seen and recorded to some of the ulti- 

 mate aims and objects of geological investigation. It may have been 

 no very difficult matter to restore the physical features of the north 

 hemisphere for the Tertiary, or even for the Cretaceous and Oolitic 

 periods of past time. The Permian area and that of old Coal-growths 

 are both easy enough of definition. But, standing before you as I now 

 do, I am forcibly reminded that when it came to the consideration of 

 those vast masses of early Palaeozoic deposit, now raised up into 

 the mountains of "Wales, so large a portion of which go to form your 

 Silurian series, that then for the first time all landmarks seem to 

 disappear, and that I was driven to steer for a "Western Atlantis older 

 and larger far than that of Plato. 



Such speculations may by some have been thought hazardous ; but 

 little by httle this Western sub-Atlantic land has acquired wonderful 

 distinctness, and towards this chapter in ancient geography those re- 

 searches which you have recently been engaged in in the north-western 

 regions of these our British Islands have lent a most important aid. 



