PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 



19th FEBRUARY, 1858. 



Award of the Wollaston Medal and Donation Fund. 



The preceding Reports having been read, the President, Major- 

 General Portlock, addressed the Meeting as follows : — 



The Report of the Council has pointed out that its Members have 

 on this occasion awarded two medals, thinking it desirable to mark, 

 without delay, their high appreciation of the great merits of two most 

 distinguished men, who, labouring in countries very distant from each 

 other, have contributed largely to our knowledge of the ancient Na- 

 tural History of the earth. 



The first Medal has been assigned to a veteran Palaeontologist, 

 Hermann von Meyer, who commenced his labours twenty-three years 

 ago by investigating the principle of determining the order and classi- 

 fication of mineral deposits by their natural-history relations. From 

 that time he has been engaged in an uninterrupted course of Palseon- 

 tological inquiries of the most varied nature, and he has become one 

 of the leading authorities upon the subject in Germany. Sixteen years 

 ago he was associated with Germar, Count Minister, and Professor 

 Unger in that important work ' Beitrage zur Petrefaktenkunde,' or 

 Contributions to the Knowledge of Fossils, which was rich in every 

 branch of organic remains, whether animal or vegetable ; and I find 

 in the fifth part the description of a species of Pterodactyle, Ptero- 

 dactylus Meyeri, discovered by Von Meyer himself, and named by 

 Miinster after his able coadjutor. Fossil Fishes and Fossil Plants 

 were equally the subject of discussion in this able work, which ex- 

 tended to seven parts. He was associated with Plieninger in de- 

 scribing the palaeontology of Wiirtemberg, and he is now engaged 

 with Dunker in publishing a general * Pal8^ontographica, , which has 

 already recorded many interesting discoveries in this most rich and 

 fascinating science. It will, I am sure, therefore, be felt that we are 

 only doing justice to the claims of a man who has produced no less 

 than 57 treatises upon Palaeontological subjects, not one of which 

 can be considered undeserving of respect and attention. 



Sir C. Lyell, — It is with great pleasure that I place the Medal 



VOL. XIV. C 



