May 24, 1858.] PROFESSOR BACHE— ROYAL AWARDS. 
235 
of Professor Bache, I have a peculiar satisfaction in being per- 
mitted to place the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical 
Society in the hands of your Excellency, with the request that you 
will convey it to your eminent relative, 
“ The grounds for making the award of the highest distinc- 
tion which it is in our power to confer, have been expressed in 
the terms sanctioned by the Council; but that document does 
not allude to other great qualities of a man who, besides his 
admirable Coast Survey, has so largely extended our knowledge on 
various subjects of scientific importance. I may here cite his 
delineation of the iso-magnetic curves both in Europe and America, 
his littoral and deep-sea soundings, which, it is believed, will soon 
enable us to read off the natural history of the Gulf Stream, and 
to calculate the periodicity and perturbations of the tides at given 
spots, and his many ingenious inventions, including a method of 
registering the pulsations of distant earthquakes. 
“ British philosophers, Sir, have indeed long admired the pro- 
gress of your accomplished relative, as I can personally testif}^ ; 
for when he visited our country, in 1847, I had the gratification, on 
resigning the chair of the British Association to my esteemed 
friend Sir Robert Inglis, to welcome Mr. Bache to our meeting at 
Oxford, where he presented to us some results of his great Survey, 
and we did honour to ourselves by enrolling him among our hono- 
rary members. 
“ Lastly, Sir, when I know how successfully he has recently been 
labouring to aid the accomplishment of the submarine electric 
telegraph which is to unite our countries — that this same indi- 
vidual is the great-grandson of the illustrious Benjamin Franklin, 
as well as the near relative of one of your leading statesmen, and 
that, bearing his honoured name, he is your own nephew, I feel, 
in common with my Associates, that there never was an occasion 
on which the sympathies and just pride of our kindred nations 
were more thoroughly united, than they are by the adjudication of 
the Victoria Gold Medal to Alexander Dallas Bache.” 
The American Minister thus replied : — 
“ Mr. President, — I receive with much gratification, on behalf of 
my eminent fellow-citizen, Professor Alexander D. Bache, this mark 
of the approbation of your learned Societ}^. 
“ The fame of her sons in the noble brotherhood of science is a 
most cherished part of my country’s wealth and strength ; and, as 
her national representative, I thank you, Gentlemen, for thus 
adding to her store. 
“ Professor Bache has for many years discharged elevated, interest- 
ing, and arduous duties under the Government of the United States. 
He was specially fitted for these by academical training and suc- 
cesses, by educational labours, by an intellect at once lucid, pro- 
found, and persevering, and by an aptitude, not too common with 
reserved students and philosophers, for practical method and admi- 
nistration. Without adverting to a rich series of prior and of 
