xl PEOCEEDIXGS OF THE GEOLOGIC-IL SOCIETY, [vol. Ixxviii, 



contributing largely by your o\Yn observations to, and by 

 Your "wi'itino^s to the dissemination of, the results ; nor have you 

 feared to attack the more abstruse and polemical problems of 

 theoretical geology, of which you have been an eloquent illuminator 

 and interesting exponent. To many, doubtless, this aspect of your 

 activities looms largest, to the exclusion of the great amount of 

 laborious and detailed work which you have devoted to observation 

 in field and laboratory, and of the contributions which you have 

 made to our knowledge of the origin of rocks, both igneous and 

 sedimentary. It is this side of your activities which carried most 

 Aveight with the Council in its decision to award to you the 

 jMurchison Medal of the Society, nor was it oblivious of the 

 service which you have rendered to science, by the use of your 

 influence, in initiating, extending, and guiding the conduct of geo- 

 logical investigations in the colonies and dependencies of the 

 British realm. Xot in one wav onlv have vou earned that recos:- 

 nition which it is a pleasure to convey to you in the name of the 

 Society. 



Dr. EvAXS replied in the following words : — - 



Mr. Peeside>'t, — 



It is nearly a third of a century since Prof. Judd awarded to me 

 a medal struck from the same die as that which I have just been 

 so fortunate as to receive at your hands. The former was given 

 as an encouragement to one who was commencing his geological 

 career. This ]Medal, I trust, I can accept as an assm-ance that I 

 have not entirely wasted the intervening years. If some may 

 think that, in a life with many calls upon it, I have attempted too 

 much and carried too little to completion, I would plead that I 

 have learnt, as I could not otherwise have done, how vast are the 

 problems which our science presents for solution, and have been 

 enabled to assist the younger men, with whom 1 have come into 

 contact in my College and Colonial Office work, to realize the 

 wide field of research that lies oj^en before them. 



