ANNIVERSARY MEETING BIGSBY MEDAL. 37 



horce subsecivce of a. busy professional life in prosecuting those re- 

 searches which have had a distinct effect on geological thought. In 

 handing to you this Medal, I would express the wish that you will 

 continue to prosecute the line of inquiry to which you have so long 

 and so successfully devoted your leisure hours. 



Dr. Hicks, in reply, said : — 

 Mr. President,— 



I feel exceedingly grateful to the Council of the Geological Society 

 for the great honour they have done me in selecting me to receive 

 the Bigsby Medal ; for I cannot fail to recognize in this award a 

 recognition by those whose opinion I most value, that work which 

 has long been to me a means of recreation and of much intellectual 

 enjoyment has also yielded something towards the advancement of 

 that science to which I am so deeply attached. I must also express 

 my gratitude to you, Sir, for the kind manner in which you have 

 referred to my labours. It is just 20 years since I commenced my 

 search for fossils among the old rocks at St. David's, and the en- 

 thusiasm with which every new find was welcomed by the late emi- 

 nent palaeontologist Mr. Salter, to whom they were first sent, was 

 in itself a sufficient stimulus for any exertions required. 



I had the honour also from time to time to conduct many eminent 

 geologists over the ground explored, and received from them much 

 encouragement. Among these, however, no one was more anxious 

 to show enthusiastic sympathy than the amiable Dr. Bigsby, the 

 founder of this Medal, who visited St. David's in the summer of 

 1866. His interest in the sections was extreme, due doubtless in 

 part to the fact that a few years before he had communicated a 

 paper to this Society on the relation between the Cambrian and 

 Huronian rocks, and that here at St. David's I was able to show him 

 some proof in support of the view which he maintained, that the 

 Huronian rocks were older than any which could be classed as 

 Cambrian in America. 



It is therefore, Sir, peculiarly pleasing to me that I should now 

 be thought worthy of the great honour of receiving the Bigsby 

 Medal ; and I can only hope that I may be able, in the words of 

 the founder, to do further work, and to continue with renewed 

 vigour those researches which have brought me this honour and 

 what I value almost equally, namely the friendship of so many 

 eminent Fellows of the Geological Society. 



VOL. XXXIX. 



