xlvi PROCEEBINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1 898, 



Dr. Blanfoed replied in the following terms : — 

 Mr. Peesideistt, — 



I am glad that I am able to comply with the request of my old 

 friend and colleague Dr. Waagen, that I would represent him on this 

 occasion and receive for him the Lyell Medal of the present year. 



May I be allowed to express my own gratification at the Award ? 

 Pew geologists, I think, will question the value of the palaeonto- 

 logical work done in connexion with the Geological Survey of India 

 since that Survey was first organized under the late Dr. Thomas 

 Oldham. Dr. "Waagen is now the only survivor of the first three 

 Palseontologists who between them occupied the post from 1862 

 to 1883. As, moreover, Dr. Waagen has been continuously engaged 

 in the study of Indian Palaeontology, and in contributing to the 

 Survey publications, from the date when he first joined the Indian 

 Geological Survey to the present day, he is the author of a much 

 larger share of the work than either of his colleagues. 



As you, Sir, have already stated, the Proceeds of the Lyell Pund 

 were awarded to Dr. Waagen just 20 years ago, in 1878. There 

 has rarely, I believe, been an occasion on which the intentions of 

 the o-reat geologist who founded this Fund have been more thoroughly 

 carried out. Sir Charles Lyell desired that the interest of this Pund 

 should be given for the encouragement of Geology or of any of the 

 allied sciences by which Geology has been most materially advanced. 

 At the time when the Pund was awarded Dr. Waagen had left India, 

 broken in health, and in serious difficulty through having to resign 

 his appointment on the Indian Survey, on account of his inability 

 to resist the effects of a tropical climate. I know as a fact that 

 the Award was a great encouragement to him, and I think that the 

 volumes which he has since published in the ' Palseontologia Indica,' 

 containing his descriptions of that marvellous series of Salt Eange 

 fossils from Lower Cambrian to Trias, and his masterly summary 

 of the Geological results, have thoroughly justified the Award that 

 was made. 



In a letter which he wrote to me recently, Dr. Waagen said : 

 ' The decision of the Geological Society's Council to award to me 

 the Lyell Medal is extremely gratifying, and I have to express 

 to the Society my most heartfelt thanks. These I beg you to 

 express to the Society, as my health is yet too untrustworthy 

 for me to go to London and do so myself. I hope yet to do some 

 work though my chief work has been done. I hope to finish the 



