32 



PROCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



At the date of your election the ' Principles of Geology ' had but 

 just appeared, while Sedgwick and Murchison had not even com- 

 menced their researches among the Palaeozoic rocks of Western 

 Britain. A pupil of the great Cambridge professor and infected 

 with his enthusiasm, you soon began to contribute to various 

 scientific journals, our own among the number, and in 1845 your 

 valuable ' History of Fossil Insects ' — the first treatise of the kind 

 published in any language — made its appearance. A dweller in the 

 provinces, you have shown how the advancement of our Science may 

 best be promoted under those conditions ; and in the field-clubs and 

 local societies which have done so much for the study of geology in 

 the West of England, where your home lay, you have long been a 

 prominent and very active worker. Your published papers on a 

 great variety of subjects amount to more than 50, and only last 

 year we were glad to welcome a fresh contribution from your pen, 

 and to hear your clear exposition of it, as you stood before us with 

 eye undimmed and with natural force unabated. The Council of 

 this Society have adjudged you to be a worthy recipient of the 

 Medal founded by their President of 1833. 



Mr. Brodie, in reply, said: — 



Mr. President, — 



I receive, Sir, this mark of the approbation of the Council with 

 very great pleasure and grateful thanks ; and it was more gratify- 

 ing because it took me quite by surprise. After searching the rocks 

 for more than half a century, and having been a Pellow of this Society 

 for 53 years, it might be expected that I should have done more to 

 enlarge our knowledge of geology ; but of course my time was not 

 entirely at my own disposal in this respect, and I could therefore 

 only study Natural Science in the closet and the field during 

 hours of leisure. As a proof that I have not been altogether idle, 

 I have made during that time a large collection of fossils, number- 

 ing twenty-three thousand specimens, named and arranged, more or 

 less illustrating every formation in the British Isles. But of course 

 a mere collection of fossils, though having a certain value, is of 

 little worth without an accurate knowledge of the rocks and their 

 organic contents. 



The award of the Murchison Medal is especially agreeable to 

 me because I have had many pleasant and instructive days in 

 the field with that distinguished geologist ; but I do not forget 

 that at Cambridge I was a pupil of the illustrious Sedgwick, 

 to whom I owe a lasting debt of gratitude for the kind help and 

 encouragement which that great and good professor was ever ready 

 to give to any student anxious to learn. In after years, I can with 

 pardonable pride speak of him as my friend. When I made 

 some of my earlier discoveries of fossil insects and other organisms 

 in the Wealden Purbecks in the Yale of W ardour, I received a 

 letter from him in which he said, " you have made a good hit, go on 



