Xlil PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [vol. 1XXV, 



Award of the Wollastox Medal. 



In presenting the Wollaston Medal to Sir ArBREr Strahax, 

 K.B.E., F.E.S., Director of H.M. Geological Survey, the Presi- 

 dent addressed him as follows : — 



Sir Aubrey Strahax, — 



The Wollaston Medal has "been awarded to you unanimously by 

 the Council in recognition of the high value of your researches 

 concerning the mineral structure of the Earth, particularly in the 

 domain of British Stratigraphy. To these researches you have 

 ■devoted the whole energy of your manhood, and the results have 

 been commensurate with the endeavour. In every part of our land 

 that you have investigated — in Cheshire, Flintshire, Lincolnshire, 

 the Isle of Wight, the Isle of Purbeck the South Wales Coalfield, 

 •and elsewhere — your work has been characterized by the accuracy 

 •and restraint which this Society has ever striven to maintain as 

 the standard for British Geology. Consciously or unconsciously, 

 you have acted upon the admonition in the passage from the 

 Preface to Novum Organum standing as a motto on the title- 

 page of our Journal, for you have fulfilled exactly the clauses 

 which, when translated, read : ' to win victories over Xature as a 

 worker rather than over hostile critics as a disputant ; to attain, in 

 fact, to clear and demonstrative knowledge instead of attractive 

 and probable theory.' 



The Geological Survey maps, in which so much of your life's 

 work is presented in so small a space, are models of clearness and 

 precision ; in the accompanying memoirs you have conveyed your 

 results, often of the widest consequence, with inimitable terseness, 

 and the same qualities are displayed in all your unofficial papers on 

 a wide range of subjects. While alert to the philosophical bearings 

 of your studies, you have kept always in view their practical appli- 

 cation for the benefit of mankind, and have most successfully used 

 your knowledge for the common weal, both in Peace and in War. 



Xot by your individual investigations only, but also by your 

 able guidance of the work of others, as Director of the Geological 

 Survey of Great Britain, you have conspicuously advanced the 

 interests and repute of our science. 



To me it is most gratifying that I should happen to be the 



