V0I.51O ANNIVERSARY MEETING W0LLAST0N MEDAL. XXXvii 



researches, — deserves especial mention ; and you were eventually 

 led to consider generally the history of volcanic action in Britain,, 

 an account of which is given in the two Presidential Addresses 

 delivered hy you before this Society (1891-92). I may also allude to 

 your Memoir on the Old Red Sandstone ; to your researches among 

 the older rocks, and to the admirable manner in which you have 

 directed the labours of your staff on the Geological Survey, especially 

 in their work among the Scottish Highlands — where the geologist is 

 confronted by some of the most difficult and complicated of geolo- 

 gical problems. Your great Text-Book of Geology ; your attractive 

 memoirs of Edward Forbes, of Murchison, and lastly, that just 

 published, of Ramsay — attest the facility with which you wield the 

 pen, as well as the hammer. It has been my good fortune to claim 

 you among my personal friends since first we met in 1864, and 

 many good papers by you have appeared in the Geological 

 Magazine, as well as in the Quarterly Journal. May you long 

 continue to hold the important position of Director-General of our 

 Geological Survey — to the well-being of the members of your staff,, 

 and to the advancement of Geology in this country. 



Sir Archibald Geikie, in reply, said : — 

 Mr. President, — 



To receive from the Geological Society its highest award, and 

 thus to be enrolled in that list of illustrious names so intimately 

 associated with the birth and progress of Geology, is a distinction 

 of which a man may well be proud. I am deeply grateful to the 

 Council for the honour which they confer upon me, and to you, Sir, for 

 the kindly but too eulogistic words with which you have handed to me 

 the Wollaston Medal. Por any services which I have been able to 

 render to the cause of our favourite science I am mainly indebted 

 to the enthusiasm with which, in my boyhood, the science itself 

 inspired me. Geology early fascinated me, and she fascinates me 

 still. She filled me with earnest desire to devote my life to her 

 service, and so overmastering did this desire become that, although 

 destined for a wholly different career, I was finally allowed to follow 

 whither she led. That ardour has lasted ever since, and I am not 

 conscious that it has yet begun to grow dim, even although some- 

 times one may perhaps feel the hills to be a little steeper and the 

 miles a little longer than they used to be thirty or forty years 

 ago. 



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