872 



Dr. Mantell, 



In presenting to you the Royal Medal for your paper ' On the 

 Structure of the Jaws and Teeth of the Iguanodon,' published in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1848, I have great pleasure in 

 assuring you that the Council of the Society appreciate highly the 

 merits of an important series of papers which you have previously 

 written on that fossil animal, and your labours in the field of geology 

 generally. 



The President then called upon Mr. Bell to read the biographical 

 notices of some of the deceased Members, which he then handed 

 to him. 



It is many years since the scientific world has had to deplore a 

 loss so severe as that which it has recently sustained in the death of 

 Berzelius, whose varied and indefatigeible labours for fifty years in 

 the science of chemistry have rendered his name illustrious through- 

 out the civilized world. 



Jons Jacob Berzelius was born on the 20th of August 1779, 

 the same year in v»'hich our own Davy first saw the light, at the vil- 

 lage of Wafersunda in East Gothland. His father was parochial 

 schoolmaster in Linkoping, but died before his son emerged from 

 boyhood. At the age of 17 he entered upon the study of Medicine 

 in the University of Upsal, where, in the laboratory of Afzelius, a 

 man little versed in experimental inquiry, and consequently possess- 

 ing but little practical knowledge of his science, the first analytical 

 essays of Berzelius were made. He was thus necessarily thrown 

 upon his own resources, and compelled to discover for himself, by 

 reflection and reading, the explanation of the new and unforeseen 

 phenomena which presented themselves in the course of his experi- 

 ments : with what success he thus applied himself he was soon to 

 furnish ample proofs. In 1798 he passed his examination in Phi- 

 losophy, and shortly after he engaged himself as assistant to a 

 physician residing at the baths of Medevi. A chemical analysis 

 of these springs furnished the subject of his first scientific publica- 

 tion, which ushered in a series of papers on a variety of most im- 

 portant topics connected with chemistry, and which followed each 

 other in rapid succession during the remainder of his long and valuable 

 life. 



In 1804 he graduated as Doctor of Medicine, and shortly after 

 established himself in practice at Stockholm. He had already ac- 

 quired such reputation by his researches, that he was immediately 

 appointed assistant to Spaurnau, then Professor of Medicine, Botany, 

 and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the University of the capital ; and 

 on the death of the Professor, which occurred in 1806, he was elected 

 to the vacant chair. Berzelius was by this appointment bound to 

 give lectures, both upon Medicine and upon Chemistry ; those he 

 delivered on Medicine were highly successful, but his early courses 

 of Chemistry were by no means popular, as, in conformity with the 



