XIX 



PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 



19th FEBRUARY, 1847. 



Award of the Wollaston Medal and Donation Fund. 



After the Reports of the Council and Committees had been read, 

 the President delivered the Wollaston Palladium Medal, awarded to 

 Dr. Boue, to Sir Roderick Murchison, addressing him as follows : — 



Sir Roderick Murchison, 



In presenting to you, as the representative of your friend Dr. 

 Boue of Vienna, the Wollaston Palladium Medal, I cannot better 

 set forth his claims to the honour than by repeating the terms of the 

 award of the Council. This distinction has been conferred on him 

 " for the zeal, intelligence and perseverance with which he has de- 

 voted himself, both in the field and in the study, to the attainment 

 and diffusion of geological knowledge during the last thirty years ; 

 for his valuable and original investigations in Scotland, the south of 

 France, Italy, the mountain regions of Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Swit- 

 zerland and the Tyrol, Austria, lUyria, Hungary, Transylvania, &c.; 

 for his scientific researches in European Turkey ; for his industry 

 in collecting materials and his skill in arranging them, as exemplified 

 in his geological maps, particularly those of Europe and the World, 

 and in numerous other publications ; all tending to facilitate the study 

 and advance the progress of Geology and its kindred sciences." 



So comprehensive an enumeration of the claims of Dr. Boue to 

 the gratitude of geologists, — so ample an exposition of the grounds 

 on which the Council have conferred this distinction upon him, may 

 probably be considered sufficient without my adding another word ; 

 but as Dr. Boue is a very old personal friend, I hope I shall be ex- 

 cused if I dwell a little longer upon some of his merits, and give 

 expression to my admiration of his indefatigable zeal, activity and 

 success in the pursuit of science. I first knew him as a medical stu- 

 dent at Edinburgh, where, in the lecture-room of Professor Jameson, 

 and in sight of the interesting geological features of the neighbour- 

 hood of that city, he first imbibed a taste for our science. While in 

 Scotland, he traversed almost every part of it, as a botanist and geo- 

 logist ; and in his inaugural dissertation for his doctor's degree in 

 1817? he pointed out the influence of geological structure on the 

 flora of a country, iUustrated by examples drawn from Scotland. 

 Soon after he left Edinburgh he published his ' Essai Geologique 



VOL. III. C 



