Presentation of the Wollaston Prizes, 305 



placing into your hands the award that has been made to you by the 

 Council of the Geological Society, of one year's interest of the Wol- 

 laston Fund, in order to facilitate the continuation of your researches 

 in Mineral Conchology — The services are great which have been 

 rendered to Geology by the extremely useful and well-timed work 

 on fossil shells, which was many years ago begun by your excellent 

 father, and continued by him to the end of his life, and has been 

 since conducted by yourself; and the association of his name with 

 that of Dr. Wollaston, recalls to my mind, as it must to the minds of 

 most of my hearers, pleasing and grateful recollections of the bene- 

 fits which during their lives they both conferred on this Society, 

 and which theiv works will have extended to all our contemporaries 

 and successors in this department of scientific inquiry. It was 

 your father's peculiar merit to be one of those accurate and enthu- 

 siastic observers of nature, who have in modern times contributed 

 so much to remove from science the rugged and austere aspect 

 under which it used to be presented ; and who by facilitating to every 

 one the means of advancing pleasantly in its pursuit, have, in an 

 essential manner, promoted, and given popularity to the study of 

 Botany and Conchology. 



It is to Mineral Conchology, which he so especially promoted, that 

 we who are occupied with the investigation of the structure of the 

 earth, have in modern times been mainly indebted for evidences 

 which have led to the establishment of many of the most important 

 stratigraphical distributions, that have been founded on the suc- 

 cessive changes in animated nature which are made known to us by 

 the study of fossil shells. It was on this foundation that Cuvier and 

 Brongniart established their important divisions of the marine and 

 freshwater strata of the Tertiary formations, which have since been 

 more minutely distributed by Mr. Lyell into the eocene, pliocene, 

 and miocene series, according to their relative numbers of extinct 

 and recent species of fossil shells. It was on a similar foundation 

 that Mr. William Smith rested his identification of the Secondary 

 strata of England. It is on the same basis of conchological evidence 

 that Mr. Murchison has founded his fourfold subdivisions of the 

 Silurian portion of the Transition rocks ; and it is chiefly to the illu- 

 mination which this branch of Palaeontology has shed upon the 

 changes that took place on the surface of the earth, whilst its strata 

 were in process of formation, that we owe the rapid advances in 

 geological knowledge which have been made since the commence- 

 ment of the present century. To this rapid progress, arising from 

 the introduction of the evidences of mineral Conchology, your own 

 publications and those of your family have largely contributed ; you 

 have further co-operated materially in advancing our inquiries by 

 your personal assistance, at all times cheerfully and liberally ren- 

 dered, to all your fellow labourers in the same fields of scientific 

 research, who stood in need of your aid, for the elucidation of mi- 

 nute distinctions in the characters of fossil organic remains, which 

 have at this time become so important an element in geology. 

 The volumes of the Transactions of this Society, and other publi- 



PhiL Mag. S. 3. Vol. 17. No. 110. Oct. 184-0. X 



