34 
PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  GEOLOGICAL  SOCIETY. 
[May  1893, 
Award  of  the  Wollaston  Medal. 
In  presenting  the  Wollaston  Medal  to  Prof.  Yevil  Story 
Masked yne,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  F.G.S.,  the  President  addressed  him 
in  the  following  words  : — 
Professor  Maskeline, — 
The  Council  of  the  Geological  Society  have  this  year  awarded  to 
you  the  Wollaston  Medal,  in  recognition  of  your  researches  in  those 
branches  of  science  which  the  Pounder  himself  cultivated  with  so 
much  success.  We  do  not  forget  that  Wollaston  invented  the 
reflecting  goniometer,  and  that  no  one  has  been  more  skilful  in  the 
use  of  that  instrument  than  yourself.  Thirty  years  ago  you  were 
enabled,  in  this  way,  to  make  an  exact  determination  of  the  form  of 
the  minute  crystals  of  Connellite  ;  and  the  later  discovery  of  larger 
crystals  of  that  mineral  has  only  served  to  confirm  the  accuracy  of 
your  original  determination.  During  the  thirty-five  years  that  you 
have  occupied  the  Chair  of  Mineralogy  at  Oxford  you  have  ever 
insisted  on  symmetry  as  being  the  essential  feature  of  the  cry¬ 
stalline  systems.  Contemporaneously  with  your  professorial  duties 
you  devoted  twenty- three  years  of  your  life  to  the  development  of 
the  mineral  collections  at  the  British  Museum.  These  collections 
had  for  some  years  previously  been  without  a  mineralogist  in  charge. 
With  the  co-operation  of  the  late  Mr.  Thomas  Davies,  your  apt  pupil 
and  assistant,  the  collection  was  rearranged  ;  and  when  you  left  the 
Museum  to  enter  Parliament,  in  1880,  the  classification  of  the  entire 
collection  had  reached  a  high  pitch  of  perfection,  while  the  collection 
itself  had  been  in  many  respects  enriched. 
The  investigation  of  extra-telluric  bodies  has  long  since  attracted 
your  attention,  though  the  want  of  a  chemical  laboratory  must  have 
been  felt  by  one  who  had  already  proved,  from  his  numerous  chemical 
papers,  the  interest  he  took  in  that  science.  Failing  this,  you  sought 
to  recognize  the  individual  minerals  by  the  aid  of  the  microscope, 
working  on  thin  sections — a  method  now  universally  adopted  in  the 
study  of  terrestrial  rocks.  In  this  way,  thirty  years  ago,  you  were 
enabled  to  determine  many  of  the  most  important  ingredients  of 
meteorites,  by  means  of  the  relation  of  the  axes  of  optic  elasticity  to 
known  crystallographic  lines.  The  microscope  was  further  applied 
to  the  mechanical  separation  of  the  different  mineral  ingredients  of 
a  meteorite,  and  the  existence  of  such  minerals  as  enstatite  and 
bronzite  demonstrated.  Your  research  on  the  mineral  constituents 
