512 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
To palaeontology he has contributed several new species of fishes 
from the Old Eed Sandstone and the Carboniferous rocks. In great 
measure to his perseverance do we owe our present list of the 
ichthyolites of Caithness and the Orkney Islands. But perhaps 
the most important item of his labours, in this department, at least, 
if we regard questions alike in theoretical geology and in the geolo- 
gical structure of Britain, was the discovery of fossils in the lime- 
stones of Sutherland, Previous to his observations the rocks of the 
Scottish Highlands were usually grouped with the so-called “ Azoic” 
rocks, as if they belonged to a time anterior to any of the fossil- 
bearing formations of the country. Obscure organic remains had 
neen indeed detected many years before by Macculloch in the 
quartz-rocks of Sutherland, and these were afterwards brought 
again into notice by Hay Cunningham. But they had gradually 
passed out of mind, their organic nature being stoutly denied even 
by such geologists as Sedgwick and Murchison. Mr Peach, how- 
ever, brought to light a good series of recognisable shells and corals, 
which demonstrated the limestones containing them to lie on the 
same geological horizon as some part of the great Lower Silurian 
formations of other regions. It was this discovery which enabled Sir 
Boderick Murchison to clear up the geological structure of the High- 
lands, and entitled him to be the first Brisbane medallist of this 
Society. 
In every department of natural science to which Mr Peach has 
given his attention he has distinguished himself as a keen-eyed 
and enthusiastic collector, wdth an almost unrivalled shrewdness in 
detecting what was new, and at the same time with a disinterested 
readiness to hand over his materials to those who had more specially 
studied the department of natural history to which these materials 
belonged. For his varied contributions to science, carried on for 
so long a time, with a purity of motive and a generous helpfulness 
towards others which have won for him the esteem of all naturalists, 
and with an enthusiasm which the lapse of more than threescore 
years and ten has left undimmed, the Council has adjudged to him 
the Neill prize. I beg on their part to present him to you, with 
the cordial wish that he may yet live for many years among us as 
an honoured type of the true collector and naturalist. 
