XXVI PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Godwin-Austen, — In the absence of the Drs. Sandberger, 

 to whom the Council of the Geological Society have this year awarded 

 the balance of the proceeds of the Wollaston Fund, I must request 

 you to inform them that the Council have come to this resolution in 

 consideration of their valuable work on the Fossils of the Palaeozoic 

 Rocks of the Rhine, in Nassau, and to assist them in its completion, 

 as also in the publication of their intended work on the Fossils of the 

 Mayence Basin. 



You, who with myself, have had an opportunity of appreciating the 

 labours of these gentlemen, can testify to the zeal and industry, and 

 the real scientific enthusiasm with which they pursue their geological 

 investigations. You will, I trust, inform them that we are desirous 

 of expressing our admiration at the manner in which the fossils 

 illustrating their work have been represented, and at the accuracy 

 with which they have been drawn. No one is better able than your- 

 self to judge of and to appreciate this accuracy. At the same time, the 

 Council also wish to testify their opinion of the talent and judgment 

 shown in the description of the fossils, and in referring them to their 

 respective formations. By this work they have greatly added to 

 our knowledge of the Devonian System in Germany, and of the 

 various forms of organic life by which the different members of that 

 system are characterized in the Rhenish districts. The Council 

 trust that by this award they will be better enabled to complete 

 without much delay a work on which they have already expended 

 so much labour, time, and thought ; and of which one part only is, 

 I believe, still wanting. They also trust that they may look for- 

 ward to the commencement, at no distant period, of the work, already 

 announced, on the Fossils of the Mayence Basin. The labours of 

 Dr. Fridolin Sandberger on this subject are already so well known 

 to the cultivators of tertiary geology, that the Council entertain the 

 fullest confidence that it will prove no less important and creditable 

 to its authors than that which is now so near completion. I have 

 now only to request, that in forwarding to these gentlemen this dona- 

 tion, you will express to them our hope that they will see in it, 

 however small, an earnest of our good wishes for their future pros- 

 perity, and an evidence of our appreciation of what they have 

 already done. 



Mr. Godwin-Austen replied as follows : — 



Sir, — I have much pleasure in accepting the balance of the proceeds 

 of the Wollaston Donation Fund on behalf of the Messrs. Sandberger, 

 inasmuch as I am one of the few Members of the Society who have the 

 pleasure of being personally acquainted with these gentlemen. It is this 

 which enables me to assure you, with peculiar confidence, of the high 

 estimation in which they will hold the recognition by this Society of 

 their services to geological science ; whilst, at the same time, I feel 

 satisfied that the award was never made in stricter conformity with 

 the views of the founder, than in the present instance. The work of 

 the Messrs. Sandberger which has been more particularly noticed, — 

 the * Systematische Beschreibung und Abbildung der Versteine- 



