38 
PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  GEOLOGICAL  SOCIETY. 
[May  1893, 
Award  of  the  Murchison  Medal. 
In  presenting  the  Murchison  Medal  to  the  Rev.  Osmond  Fisher, 
M.A.,  F.G.S.,  the  President  addressed  him  as  follows : — 
Mr.  Fisher, — 
The  Council  have  this  year  awarded  to  you  the  Murchison 
Medal,  together  with  a  sum  of  Twenty  Guineas,  in  consideration 
of  the  work  you  have  done  in  the  general  advancement  of  Geological 
Science.  They  recognize  the  importance  of  your  work,  at  once  as  a 
stratigraphical  geologist  and  as  a  physicist  who  has  devoted  his 
attention  to  problems  in  connexion  with  the  Earth's  crust.  It  is 
now  nearly  forty  years  since  your  paper  on  the  Purbeck  strata  of 
Dorsetshire  made  its  appearance,  worked  out  while  you  had  charge 
of  a  parish  in  Dorchester,  your  connexion  with  this  part  of  the  world 
arising  from  the  fact  that  your  father  was  formerly  Vicar  of  Osming- 
ton.  During  the  last  30  or  35  years  a  very  great  number  of  works 
have  emanated  from  your  pen,  and  have  been  published  either  sepa¬ 
rately  or  in  the  Proceedings  of  our  own  or  of  some  other  Society. 
These  works  attest  the  wide  range  of  the  subjects  in  which  you 
have  taken  an  interest  and  the  extent  of  your  scientific  research. 
The  subjects  may  be  classified  under  four  principal  heads  : _ 1.  Earth 
sculpture  and  its  results  ;  2.  The  discrimination  of  the  various 
superficial  deposits  collectively  spoken  of  as  Drifts ;  3.  Description 
of  the  stratigraphy  and  palaeontology  of  the  later  Jurassics  of 
Dorsetshire  and  the  Older  Tertiaries  of  the  Isle  of  Wight ;  4.  Inves¬ 
tigations  into  the  conditions  of  the  Earth’s  crust,  and  speculations 
as  to  the  causes  of  the  great  operations  which  take  place  therein, 
either  observed  in  action  or  inferred  from  their  results. 
Whether  dealing  with  denudation  in  Norfolk,  with  the  Brackles- 
ham  Beds  on  the  coasts  of  the  Channel,  or  making  use  of  mathe¬ 
matical  analysis  to  determine  what  must  be  the  resultant  form  and 
status  of  the  Earth  (  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  certain  not  improbable 
combination  of  forces,  brought  to  bear  upon  certain  possible  con¬ 
ditions  of  the  crust),  you  have  given  evidence  of  that  philosophic  spirit 
which  has  ever  been  your  characteristic.  And  we  have  also  seen 
how  suggestive  your  work  has  been,  from  the  large  series  of  similar 
investigations  which  have  often  followed  the  publication  of  your 
results. 
