274 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
next memoir, and for which already materials have been largely 
obtained, will describe the formation as it occurs in the middle 
district of Scotland, under the title of Lake Caledonia; and the 
third district, comprehending the south of Scotland and the north 
of England, will he described under the title of Lake Cheviot. 
It was not necessary for him (the Chairman) to refer to 
Professor Geikie’s identification and classification of the rocks 
composing the strata in the Scotch northern counties, or the 
different fossils found in them. His object was merely to point 
out the nature and importance of the investigation entered on 
by Professor Geikie, and on account of which this prize had 
been awarded. He had read with the utmost interest the expo- 
sition given in the memoir, indicating, as it did, a large amount not 
only of personal labour on the part of the author, but of great 
knowledge and ability. He hoped that this prize would he accepted 
by Professor Geikie as a heartfelt acknowledgment and testimony 
by the Council of the eminent services he had rendered and is 
rendering to science by this work. He was sure also that the 
Professor would he pleased to have his name added to the roll of 
eminent men of science who had gained this prize in former years, 
at the head of which roll stands Sir Eoderick Murchison, whom 
Professor Geikie frequently alluded to in his memoir as his “ old 
chief,” and whom they all respected not merely for his great geolo- 
gical discoveries, hut for the substantial benefits conferred by him 
on our Edinburgh University, by founding in it that Chair of 
Geology which Professor Geikie so ably fills. 
The Chairman, having then invited Professor Geikie to come 
forward, placed in his hands the Gold Medal and a bank 
cheque, adding, as from himself, that it gave him peculiar 
pleasure to have been called on to perform this duty. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. The Solar Spectrum in 1877-8; with some Idea of its 
Probable Temperature of Origination. By Piazzi Smyth, 
Astronomer Koyal for Scotland. 
{Abstract.) 
This solar spectrum contains measures of about 2000 fixed lines, 
or fully a third more than are represented in Angstrom’s worthily 
