PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [April I914, 



Award oe the Wollaston Medal. 



In presenting the Wollaston Medal to Dr. John Edward Marr, 

 F.R.S., the President addressed him as follows : — 



Dr. Marr, — 



I am pleased that it has fallen to my lot to address, on such an 

 occasion as this, one with whom I have so long enjoyed an intimate 

 friendship, and by whose work I have profited so greatly. 



At the conclusion of a distinguished University career you 

 commenced, in 1878, a series of investigations, through which your 

 name will always be associated with the Lower Palaeozoic rocks. 

 Concentrating your attention first on the zoning of the strata 

 between the Coniston Limestone and the Coniston Grits in the Lake 

 District, you continued the work of Hughes, Aveline, and Salter, 

 established a classification, and discussed the division between the 

 Silurian and those Cambrian subdivisions of Sedgwick which are 

 now known as Ordovician. In 1880 you carried your researches 

 into North Wales, and instituted a comparison of the sequence as 

 there developed with that of the Lake District. During the same 

 year you laid before this Society the results of your visit to 

 Bohemia, where you had been commissioned by the University of 

 Cambridge to investigate the ' Cambrian ' and Silurian sequences, 

 with special reference to the boundary between them. In carrying 

 this work to a successful issue, you were not only able to institute 

 a comparison of the Bohemian and British developments, but 

 incidentally to show that there existed serious objections to the 

 acceptance of Barrande's ' colonies,' both on palaeontological and on 

 stratigraphical grounds. Extending your investigations to Scandi . 

 navia, you proved that Sedgwick's classification was applicable in 

 that country also, and that the principal stratigraphical and physical 

 break occurred at the 'base of the equivalents of our May Hill 

 Beds. 



Your ripe experience of the Lower Palaeozoic rocks was then 

 turned to account in South Wales, where, in collaboration with 

 the late T. Roberts, you undertook the task of subdividing the 

 groups which had been outlined by the early surveyors. Your 

 success in carrying out this programme may be judged when I say 

 that during the recent re-examination of the district by the 

 Geological Surve} r , all the subdivisions made by you and your 



