Xlvi PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIEir. [May 1 899, 



up to the search for fossils among the Carboniferous and Pleistocene 

 deposits around Glasgow. When he became Fossil-Collector to 

 the Survey he was enabled to pursue, as his regular and ordinary 

 employment, what had before been the occupation of his brief 

 hours of recreation. And now, having passed the age-limit of 

 the Civil Service, and having retired on a small pension, he con- 

 tinues to work on in his old way, and appears daily still in his 

 accustomed place in the Survey Office, busy with the search for 

 micro-organisms among the silt and peat which he gathers from 

 some of the floors of vanished Arctic lakes around Edinburgh. The 

 stores of knowledge which he has slowly amassed have always been 

 at the disposal of others who could make good use of them. That 

 his quiet, unobtrusive labours should have attracted the notice and 

 received the approbation of the Council of the Geological Society 

 is to him a source of deep gratification. So long as life and strength 

 remain, he will continue the work which has been the chief 

 pleasure and solace of his career. 



AWAED OF THE LteLL MeDAL. 



The President then presented the Lyell Medal to Lieut.-Gen. C. 

 A. McMahoNj F.E.S., addressing him as follows : — 



General McMahon, — 



Besides your petrological work in India you succeeded, by work in 

 the field as well as with the microscope, in tracing out the relations 

 of the gneissose granite or central gneiss of the Western Himalayas, 

 and in proving its intrusive character as well as its Tertiary age. 

 You thereby threw much light on the theory of the origin of that 

 great range, to a knowledge of the Glacial geology of which you 

 have also contributed. 



Eeturning to this country, you have given our Society several 

 papers, chiefly on the rocks of Cornwall and of Devon. In these 

 you have contended that the serpentine of the Lizard district is 

 intrusive, that the banded structure of the accompanying gabbros is 

 due to fluxional movements, and that the granite of Dartmoor is 

 an intrusive igneous rock of the usual character. These papers and 

 various communications to the ' Geological Magazine ' show that, 

 besides being a skilled observer, you have the valuable adjunct of 



