108 Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
The experiments made by the Austrian Artillery Commission, as well 
as those for blasting and mining, were conducted on a very large scale; 
with small arms the trials appear to have been comparatively few. j 
gun-cotton and gunpowder have to be investigated, both as to the tem- 
peratures generated in the act of explosion, and the nature of the com _ 
pounds which result from them, under circumstances strictly analogous 
to those which occur in artillery practice.’ hh 
I proceed to announce the awards which the Council has made of the 
Medals in the present year; and to state the grounds upon which these 
awards have been made. if 
The Copley Medal has been awarded to the Rev. Adam Sedgwick, for 
the Killas Rocks and their Fossils in Devonshire. i 
Mr. Sedgwick was appointed Woodwardian Professor of Geology in 
the University of Cambridge in the year 1818, since which time, up toa 
recent period, comprising an interval of upwards of forty years, he bas 
repose, 
Under such circumstances geology needed the support and open ad- 
vocacy of men who, by their intellect and acquirements, and by the re 
spect attached to their individual characters, their profession, or social 
position, might be able on the one hand to repress wild fancies, and on 
the other to rebut the unfounded assertions of those who opp 
