ANKEVERSAET MEETING MTJECHISON MEDiL AND FUND. 29 



AWAED OE THE MuECHISON MeDAL AND FuND. 



The Peesident next handed the Murchison Medal and the pro- 

 ceeds of the Miirchison Donation Fund to Mr. R. Etheeidge, F.R.S., 

 F.G.S., and addressed him as follows : — 



Mr. Etheeidge, — 



In this room and before this assembly it is hardly necessary for 

 me, in presenting you with the Murchison Medal, to enter into any 

 explanations of the reasons which have induced the Council to 

 award it to you. Your published writings, the greater part of 

 which have appeared in our ' Quarterly Journal,' and must be well 

 known and highly appreciated by most of us here present, would 

 alone suffice to justify the Council in their award. But when we 

 take into consideration your long-continued palBeontological work in 

 connexion with the Museum of the Geological Survey, the results of 

 which have silently exerted so great an influence upon the progress 

 of geology in this country, your constant help to others in their in- 

 vestigations, and your labours as a teacher in connexion with the 

 School of Mines, which must hdfe brought forth much good fruit, 

 I think every one wiU acknowledge that you are fully entitled to 

 all the honours which the Geological Society can confer upon you. 

 I must refer especially to the valuable Catalogue of British Fossils 

 upon which you have so long been engaged, to assist you in the 

 completion of which the Council have joined to the award of the 

 Murchison Medal the whole proceeds of the Fund for the present 

 year. 



Mr. Etheeidge, in reply, said : — f^ 



Mr. Peesident, — 



This is the second time the Council of the Geological Society 

 has conferred upon me the honour of being one of its recipients. 

 In 1871 I was presented with the balance of the Wollaston Fund ; 

 and to-day I receive, at your hands, evidence of the marked distinc- 

 tion and approbation of the Society in being selected to receive both 

 the Murchison Medal and Fund. I am indeed gratified at being 

 its present recipient. Sir Roderick Murchison was for fifteen years 

 my esteemed chief and valued friend ; I therefore attach especial 

 value to this mark of your approbation of any labour that I have 

 done in the cause of that science for which the Medal was founded. 

 To me no labour in the field of natural science is too great to be 

 devoted to carrying out those duties I have to perform ; and the 

 reward bestowed upon me to-day I hope still to merit and repay, 

 through work yet to be done for our Society, and by aiding others 

 to spread abroad the truths of nature as taught through geological 

 and palseontological research. 



VOL. xxxvi. 



