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PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Award of the Wollaston Medal. 



In presenting the Wollaston Gold Medal to Mr. J". W. Htjlke, 

 F.H.S., the President addressed him as follows : — 



Mr. Hulke, — 



It is a very pleasant duty which I am called upon to perform in 

 presenting you with the Wollaston Medal, as a recognition of your 

 great services to the study of Vertebrate Palaeontology. A member 

 of that honoured profession which has given to Geology — and espe- 

 cially to the biological side of our science — so many diligent and 

 accurate students, you have succeeded, in spite of the labours and 

 anxieties incident to a very active career, devoted to the alleviation 

 of human suffering and the training of others for the same duties, 

 in finding time for very valuable researches among those wonderful 

 forms of Reptilian life which characterize the Mesozoic period. 

 Your hardly-earned vacations have been spent in the search of fossil 

 bones among the mud-flats of Dorsetshire and the sandy cliffs of 

 the Isle of Wight ; and in this way you have acquired an excep- 

 tional amount of knowledge concerning the exact geological horizons 

 and the mode of occurrence of the fossils you have so admirably de- 

 scribed. As by successive discoveries you have been able to add 

 new details to your restoration of the bony framework of Igucniodon 

 you must have experienced a joy akin to that of Creation ! But 

 though you are best known to the world by these osteological re- 

 searches, those who, like myself, have had the happiness of being 

 associated with you in the work of this Society, have discovered how 

 wide is the knowledge, how catholic the sympathy, and how keen 

 the interest with which you follow all the manifold developments of 

 our Science. 



Mr. Hulke, in reply, said : — 



Mr. President, — 



I cannot find words adequately to express how highly I value the 

 distinction which the Council has this day, by your hands, conferred 

 upon me. The pleasure I experience in receiving it is in no small 

 degree increased by the words of approbation which have fallen 

 from your own lips. The Wollaston Medal is so truly great a 

 prize, and the work I have done to merit it has appeared to me so 

 little in comparison with that accomplished by the long roll of illus- 

 trious men on whom in past time it has been bestowed, that I have 

 fancied that (as occurred to Sir Philip Egerton on a similar occasion) 

 in awarding it to myself the Council may also have desired to mark 

 their recognition of the labours of those who, whilst not devoting 

 the chief part of their time and energy to the culture of that branch 

 of Natural Science for the advancement of which our Society exists, 

 yet endeavour in their leisure hours to do what in them lies to add 

 to our common stock of knowledge. To you, Sir, to the Council, 

 and to the Fellows, I tender my warmest thanks. 



