Vol. 51.] ANNIVERSARY MEETING— MURCHISON MEDAL. xli 



has forwarded to me a letter conveying his acknowledgments, 

 which reads as follows : — 



" Allow me to express my deeply-felt gratitude for the honour 

 which the Council of the Geological Society have bestowed upon me 

 by the award of the Murchison Medal. 



" It would not have been possible for me to receive a more appro- 

 priate and gratifying mark of approval of my labours in Silurian 

 Palaeontology than this, as I may, in truth, say that I owe to 

 Sir Eoderick Murchison the first stimulus to my palseontological 

 studies. In 1845, when I was quite a boy, much wondering 

 at the marvellous things I saw enclosed in the limestone-rocks 

 of my native island of Gotland, Sir Roderick, accompanied by 

 M. de Verneuil, visited the island and ranged its strata, along with 

 the other old' transition rocks ' of Sweden, in his newly-founded 

 realm ' Siluria.' This fact acted on me as a fresh revelation, and 

 indicated the path upon which to proceed. 



"Later on in life, after having profited by the vast learning 

 of my venerable friend and teacher, Prof. Sven Loven, I visited 

 London to study your splendid collections, and Sir Roderick was the 

 first to show them to me and to introduce me to the Meetings of 

 your illustrious Society. Thirty-four years are gone by since then, 

 but who could ever forget the words heard within its precincts from 

 such men as Lyell, Horner, Owen, Murchison himself, and other 

 heroes of the science ? 



" My gratification at receiving the honour of the Murchison 

 Medal is the more enhanced by its coming through your hands, 

 Mr. President, whom I can claim as the oldest living acquaintance 

 that I have in England, and to whom I moreover owe a great debt 

 of gratitude for much kindness shown during a period of more 

 than three decades." 



May I be allowed to add, Mr. President, that, though Prof. Lind- 

 strom's services to Palaeontology — of which you have spoken so 

 sympathetically — date back to a period nearly fifty years ago, yet 

 they are by no means concluded, for since the announcement was 

 made of the Council's intention to award this Medal there has ap- 

 peared a paper by Prof. Lindstrom in the ' Transactions ' of the lloyal 

 Swedish Academy of Sciences, containing a description of a new 

 species of fish from strata of Wenlock age in Gotland, which is 

 claimed to be not only the most ancient fish, but the oldest verte- 

 brate fossil yet discovered. 



