450 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



a completeness and exactitude that have been thoroughly appreciated by 

 geologists and botanists, and appending to the systematic descriptions of 

 them geological and climatic considerations, remarkable alike for their 

 caution and significance. Amongst his numerous works his ' Flora 

 fossilis Helvetia,' 'Flora Tertiana Helvetia?,' and 'Flora fossilis 

 Arctica' are conspicuous examples of well-directed labour and great 

 learniug ; while the number of his minor works on various branches of 

 biology testify to a life spent in successful devotion to science. 



During Prof. Heer's long and laborious career he has been conspicuous 

 for the liberal aid he has given to other investigators, and for the disin- 

 terested spirit in which he has worked out the collections brought by the 

 government and private expeditions of various European nations from the 

 northern and arctic regions. In particular, we are beholden to him for 

 the labour he has bestowed upon our own Arctic collections, made during 

 the last fifteen years, from that of Belcher to that of Ivares, and especially 

 for his elaborate and exhaustive memoir on the Miocene flora of Bovey 

 Tracey, published in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' — labours all the 

 more praiseworthy from being, for some years past, pursued in a recum- 

 bent posture, to which grievous bodily ill-health has confined him. 



The Medal was received for Prof. Heer by M. Henri Vernet, Consul- 

 General for Switzerland, to whom the President acknowledged the 

 Society's obligations to Prof. Heer for his elucidations of the Geology of 

 England and of the Flora of the Bovey-Tracey Coalfield, published in the 

 Philosophical Transactions ; and on behalf of the Society expressed his 

 hope that Prof. Heer might soon be restored to health. 



For the Davy Medal, now for the first time awarded, Prof. Robert 

 Wilhelm Bunsen and G-ustav Eobert Kirchhoff, both Foreign Members 

 of the Society, in recognition of their researches and discoveries in spec- 

 trum-analysis, have been selected. 



The method of spectrum-analysis, as established by these two emi- 

 nent men, must rank among the most important extensions of our means 

 of investigating the properties of matter. Before that discovery, the 

 chemical constitution of matter was examined solely by the study of the 

 changes which take place within the narrow rauge of cases of which we 

 can grasp and weigh the substance under investigation ; but the tests 

 employed in spectrum-analysis have no necessary dependence upon the 

 distance of the material from the observer. It has enabled us to see, not 

 only further, but deeper ; for, on the one hand, it has led to the detection 

 of many of the chemical constituents of masses distant from our planet, 

 and, on the other hand, it has enabled us to discover many constituents of 

 terrestrial minerals which had escaped detection until our ordinary 

 methods of analysis were guided by the more refined tests afforded by 

 the spectrum-analysis. 



