Xliv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [MayiQII, 



A WARD OF THE LYELL MeDALS. 



In presenting one of the two Lyell Medals, awarded this year, 

 to Dr. Francis Arthur Bather, F.R.S., the President addressed 

 him as follows: — 



Dr. Bather, — 



To devote one's self to the mastery and elucidation of a single 

 group of organisms, and that a large one, demands in most cases 

 so close an application to the study, that neither time nor energy 

 is available for other studies or occupations. This, however, has 

 not been the case with you. Outside your own special orders of 

 the Echinoderma you have dealt with several other groups of the 

 Tnvertebrata, and have been entrusted with the writing of the 

 British Museum Handbook on the fossil members of this division 

 of the animal kingdom. You have paid attention to the pheno- 

 mena of denudation by wind, as well as to general stratigraphical 

 questions. You have travelled far and frequently in the pursuit of 

 your comparative study of the Foreign and Colonial Museums, and 

 have contributed much information and many valuable suggestions 

 on Museum management, organization, and arrangement to your 

 colleagues in this work. You have brought your ideas and methods 

 for the popular exposition of Geology before the public at the 

 recent International Exhibitions in London, and in more than one 

 case have been exceptionally successful in achieving your objects. 

 You have made yourself a recognized authority on zoological 

 nomenclature. 



But these are all by-products. You have ever kept before your 

 mind the steadfast resolve to bring into order, to systematize and 

 classify, and to describe clearly, faithfully, and precisely, certain 

 important fossil forms of the Echinoderma, and especially the 

 Crinoids. I would especially mention your series of papers on 

 British Fossil Crinoids, your important memoir on the Crinoidea 

 of Gotland, and your latest published work on the Triassic 

 Echinoderms of Bakony. Nor must I omit to add your important 

 contribution on Echinoderma to Sir Ray Lankester's Treatise on 

 Zoology. 



In your task you have been so successful that the Council have 

 decided to ask you to accept this year a Lyell Medal, which was 

 intended by its founder to be awarded ' for the encouragement 

 of Geology or of any of the allied sciences by which they shall 

 consider Geology to have been most materially advanced.' 



