IxXXViii TEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1 896,. 



Sir Joseph Prestwich, D.C.L. (Oxon.), F.B.S., now in his 84th 

 year, received the honour of knighthood from Her Majesty on New 

 Year's Day. While we all heartily rejoice with and congratulate 

 him and Lady Prestwich on the honour conferred, we cannot 

 help feeling that the eminence to which he had long ago attained 

 by his scientific labours far transcends such tardy recognition 

 of his great and lasting services to geological science. 



A rumour had reached me that our distinguished Foreign 

 Member, Prof. James Hall, of Albany, who was elected on our 

 Foreign list in 1848, and was "Wollaston Medallist in 1858, had' 

 retired from his office of State Geologist of New York. I find this 

 is not the case, the only change being that he has relinquished the 

 post of Director of the Albany Museum since 1893, but he still 

 holds the office of State Geologist. Thirteen imperial quarto 

 volumes on ' the Palaeontology of the State of New York ' have 

 been issued by Prof. James Hall, and, at the age of eighty-five 

 years, he is still full of life and intellectual activity and engaged on 

 a monograph on Fossil Sponges, the MS. of which is now nearly 

 completed, with 30 quarto plates already drawn and litho- 

 graphed. 



"We cannot but express our admiration for the marvellous energy 

 and determination to carry on his work to the end, displayed by 

 the illustrious Professor. In this country science has a more 

 enervating and exhausting effect on Civil Servants, and they are 

 deemed past work at sixty-five ! Wherefore we are disposed to 

 envy the happy lot of our old and valued friend. 



Sir J. William Dawson, C.M.G., F.R.S., whose name will 

 be always identified in this Society with his discoveries of air- 

 breathing reptiles, land-snails, and myriopods, in erect, but hollow, 

 trunks of trees, of Carboniferous age in the South Joggins Coal- 

 field (Nova Scotia), and with his papers on Eozoon and ' Acadian 

 Geology,' etc., held the office of Principal of M'Gill College, 

 Montreal, since 1855, but has now retired into private life after a 

 long and brilliant career. Sir William is still in full activity, and 

 purposes to be at the Liverpool Meeting of the British Association 

 this year. He received the award of the Lyell Medal in 1881. 

 Sir William Dawson's Chair of Geology and Palaeontology has 

 been given to Prof. Frank Dawson Adams, M.A.Sc, Ph.D., F.G.S., 

 a very able and promising geologist. 



Another change has occurred in Canada by the retirement from 

 office of our esteemed Fellow, Dr. Alfred R. C. Selwyn, C.M.G., 



