AOTVEESAKY MEETING WOLLASTON MEDAL. 29 



AWAED OF THE WOLLASTON MEDAL. 



In presenting the Wollaston Gold Medal to Mr. W. T. Blanfoed, 

 F.R.S., E.G.S., the President addressed him as follows : — 



Mr. Blanfoed, — 



The Council has awarded you its highest distinction, the Wollaston 

 Medal, in recognition of your services to geology in Abyssinia, in 

 Persia, and on the Geological Survey of the Indian Empire. They 

 are so well and so generally known that it is not necessary for me 

 to enlarge upon them here. Tour writings, which treat of a not 

 inconsiderable portion of the Eastern Hemisphere, comprise, in addi- 

 tion to geology, much information respecting the zoology and the cli- 

 mates of the countries in which you served. Stamped with thorough- 

 ness and comprehensiveness, they constitute important additions to 

 our knowledge of those regions. In conferring upon you this dis- 

 tinction, the Council of the Geological Society desires to mark its 

 sense of their great value. 



Mr. Blanfoed, in reply, said : — 



Mr. Pkesident, — 



I find it difficult to express adequately my sense of the honour 

 that the Geological Society has conferred upon me by the award of 

 the Wollaston Medal, an honour enhanced by the flattering expres- 

 sions which you, Sir, as President of the Society, have added to the 

 gift. I believe that my own geological labours do not entitle me to 

 this distinction, and that, for this award, I am indebted fully as 

 much to the work of" my colleagues on the Geological Survey of 

 India as to my own, that in receiving the Medal I appear as their 

 representative, and that I owe that fortunate position at least as 

 much to a series of accidents as to my own merits, partly to my 

 having been selected for work of wider interest, though not of 

 greater importance, than that executed by my comrades, and partly 

 to my having resisted for a longer period than some others the in- 

 jurious effects of a tropical climate. 



My own career in India is at an end ; but the twenty- seven years 

 that have elapsed since I first landed in that country have witnessed 

 the gradual accumulation of observations sufficient not merely to 

 throw much light upon the geological structure and history of India 

 itself, but occasionally to reflect a few rays on obscure spots in the 

 geology of other regions. That the results of our labours have been 

 considered worthy of so honourable an award by the Geological 

 Society will, I am sure, prove most gratifying to my colleagues who 



