﻿CXxii PEOCEBDIN&S OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I908, 



by whom research is most successfully pursued. To one of the 

 earliest and most illustrious of our Fellows, William Hyde 

 Wollaston, we are in this way indebted for the Donation Fund 

 which bears his name, and which for the last seventy-six years 

 has been employed in awarding annually the Society's oldest 

 and highest prize, the Wollaston Medal, to a long succession of 

 geological leaders, foreign as well as native. The roll of those 

 on whom this distinction has been conferred, beginning with 

 William Smith in 1831, includes many of the most prominent 

 names in the history of modern geology. The same Donation 

 Fund has provided the means of assisting and encouraging many 

 diligent workers, whose papers have appeared in the Quarterly 

 Journal and elsewhere. Roderick Impey Murchison, Charles 

 Lyell, Joseph Prestwich, and John J. Bigsby have left provision for 

 the allocation of similar awards, and have thus greatly increased 

 the opportunities of the Society to mark its appreciation of solid 

 work in the service of our favourite science, and to connect its 

 awards with the memory of these illustrious masters. By the late 

 Daniel Pidgeon and H. C. Barlow funds have been left which have 

 proved of much use in aiding investigation and in furthering the 

 work of the Society. In my own opinion, we now possess as many 

 medals and awards as the Council can satisfactorily adjudicate 

 year after year. The pious donors of the future would more 

 directly benefit the Society by bequeathing funds, the interest of 

 which could be employed for the general purposes of the Society. 

 It would not be difficult to secure that each such fund should 

 perpetuate the name of the testator ; while, if the Council were 

 left with liberty to use the money in the way that would best 

 promote the cause of geology and the progress of the Society, 

 much which is at present impossible for lack of means might 

 then be accomplished. 



This Address has reached a greater length than I intended when 

 its preparation was begun. A still longer narrative, however, 

 would have been required to present anything like a complete 

 sketch of what the Geological Society has done for the advancement 

 of our favourite science by the publication of the papers which 

 have been read before it. The theme is worthy of much ampler 

 treatment than has been possible within the limits of an 

 Anniversary discourse. Yet I would fain hope that, imperfect 

 as it is, the outline which I have now traced to you may serve 



