llV PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [vol. lxxix, 



The President then presented the other rnoiety of the Balance 

 of the Proceeds of the Lyell Geological Fund to Prof. William 

 Thomas Gordon, D.Sc, addressing him as follows : — 



Dr. Gordon, — 



The encouraging friendliness of the Society to workers who 

 have made the botanical side of Palaeontology their chief concern 

 may fairly be said to have reached its maximum development at 

 this particular moment of geological history. It is a great pleasure 

 to rne to have the honour of presenting a moiety of the Balance of 

 the Lyell Fund to a felloAV-palseobotanist who has added very 

 materially to our knowledge of the morphology of some of the 

 more interesting genera of Lower Carboniferous plants, and, more 

 recently, has thrown light upon certain Cambrian organisms dredged 

 from the floor of the Antarctic Ocean. You have not been content 

 to investigate material provided by others ; you have shown your- 

 self to be equally at home as a collector in the field, and as a 

 lapidary and a microscopist in the laboratory. You have attacked 

 very difficult problems, particularly the elucidation of the structure 

 of some of the oldest Ferns, and in this field you have been 

 conspicuously successful. 



The work which you have done is highly appreciated by your 

 colleagues, both at home and abroad. I sincerely hope that you 

 will long continue to devote your attention and those Scottish 

 qualities, which some of us regard with envy, to the problems of 

 Palaeozoic Botany still awaiting solution in the rich herbaria on 

 the shores of the Firth of Forth. 



