Vol. 59.] ANNIVERSARZ MEETING WOLLASTON MEDAL. XXxix 



A WARD OP THE WOLLASTON MEDAL. 



In handing the Wollaston Medal, awarded to Geheimrath 

 Prof. Dr. Heinrich Rosenbttsch, For.Memb.G.S., of Heidelberg, 

 to Prof. W. J. Sollas, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S., for transmission to the 

 recipient, the President addressed him as follows : — 



Prof. Sollas, — 



No man has exercised a greater influence on the progress of 

 petrological science than Prof. Rosenbusch. Though a master of 

 detail, he has always insisted on the important bearing of micro- 

 scopical studies on many of the great theoretical problems of modern 

 geology. 



In his celebrated researches on the Steigen Schiefer he combined 

 stratigraphical, mineralogical, and chemical data in such a manner 

 that his memoir must for all time remain a classic in geological 

 literature. His subsequent work is all of the same philosophical 

 character, and every question that he has handled has been 

 fundamentally modified and notably advanced as the result of his 

 investigations. The fertility which he has shown, in the production 

 of new and often profound theories, has only been equalled by the 

 courage with which he has discarded the old, so soon as they have 

 proved unsatisfactory or incomplete. 



The successive editions of his great work on the microscopic 

 characters of minerals and rocks have been landmarks in the 

 progress of the science. The range of knowledge therein revealed 

 is enormous, yet we never feel that his writings are overburdened 

 with detail, because of the power of philosophical generalization 

 with which he marshals his facts, and reduces the whole to a 

 consistent and well co-ordinated unity. 



As a teacher Prof. Rosenbusch has especially excelled, and the 

 devotion and enthusiasm both of himself and his pupils have greatly 

 helped to awaken the interest of geologists in petrological in- 

 vestigations, and to give to these investigations the prominent 

 position that they now occupy. 



The Council of the Geological Society award their Wollaston 

 Medal to Prof. Rosenbusch, in grateful appreciation of these pre- 

 eminent services to geological science. 



vol. lix. d 



