234 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
The Neill Prize is awarded to Professor W. H. Lang, F. R.S., for his paper in conjunction with 
Dr R. Kidston, F. R. S., on Rhynia Gwynne-Vaughani, Kidston and Lang, and for his previous 
investigations on Pteridophytes and Cycads. These extend to many Memoirs published in the 
Phil. Trans., Annals of Botany, and elsewhere. In the large Memoir on “Apogamy and the 
Development of Sporangia upon Fern Prothalli,” Professor Lang recorded and elucidated a number 
of surprising abnormalities in the life-cycle of ferns. These observations, together with those on 
the prothalli and young plants of Lycopodium, Ophioglossum , and Helminthostachys, describing 
their mycorhizic saprophytism, gave him a right and a qualification for expressing original views 
on the difficult question of Alternation. His inquiry has since been also extended to the 
sporophyte generation, and has found scope in the study of the vascular system in Isoetes, and in 
the Ophioglossacese, as well as in the embryology of the latter. He has also made exhaustive study 
of the morphology of such Liverworts as Cyathodium and Notothylas. These may be held as in a 
special sense qualifying researches for that work in respect of which the Society makes the present 
award, viz. the joint Memoir on Rhynia. To carry this through successfully required just those 
qualities which such investigations as those already made by Professor Lang would train and 
mature. To present the singularly complete picture of this earliest known fossil plant with its 
structure still preserved, and to draw the comparisons with a firm hand, required experience and 
self-control. It is because there is full evidence of these qualities in the Memoir, quite as much as 
for the rarity and the sensational character of the objects themselves, that the Society awards the 
Neill Prize to Professor Lang. His name thus joins that of his co-author, Dr Kidston, in the 
Prize List of the Society. The Memoir on Rhynia may be followed by others. But its appearance 
as the first of a series marks an era not only in Palseontology but also in Plant Morphology. New 
vistas are opened by it, not merely of speculation, but of real comparison based upon new facts. 
This leafless and rootless, though vascular, plant raises at once the question, how did leaves and 
roots originate? Investigations that raise in an acute form great questions such as these are as 
important to the progress of science as those that provide the reply. The new facts have put 
theoretical Morphology again in the melting-pot, and there is every reason to expect that it will 
emerge strengthened and refined. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. On Old Red Sandstone Plants showing Structure, from the Rhynie Chert Bed, Aberdeenshire. 
Part II: Additional Notes on Rhynia Gwynne-Vaughani, Kidst. and Lang; Rhynia major, 
n.sp., and Hornea Lignieri, n. gen. et sp. By Dr R. Kidston, F.R.S., and Professor W. H. 
Lang, D.Sc. , F.R.S. [With Lantern Slides.) 
2. Notes on Mirage observed on the Queensferry Road. By Alex. G. Ram age. 
3. Four Notes by Dr W. W. Taylor: — 
a. The Rotatory Commutator Method of determining Electric Conductivity, and improved 
form of MacGregor’s Drum. 
b. The Solubility of “ Insoluble ” Salts and of Silver Chloride. 
c. The Electric Conductivity of Sols. 
d. The “Titration Acidity” of Urine. 
4. The Correlation between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance. By R. A. 
Fisher, B.A. Communicated by Professor J. Arthur Thomson. 
