The Council having awarded the Neill Prize for the Triennial Period, 1871–74, to Mr Charles William Peach, for his contributions to Scottish Zoology and Geology, and for his recent contributions to Fossil Botany, Professor Geikie, on the presentation of the medal, addressed the President as follows:—

Sir,—The Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh has awarded the Neill Prize for the triennial period, 1871–74, to Mr Charles William Peach, and on the part of the Council I am requested to describe briefly to the Society on the present occasion the nature of his scientific work, which has been judged well deserving of one of the Society's medals.

The cranial osteology and the dentition of Tristichopterus have been hitherto entirely unknown, and we were but imperfectly acquainted with the structure of the pectoral fins. Consequently great doubts have prevailed with regard to its affinities, though it was supposed to be allied in many respects to Dipterus. A suite of specimens from John O'Groat's, in the Edinburgh Museum of Science, collected by Mr Peach, the original discoverer of the fish, subsequent to the publication of Sir Philip Egerton's description, throws great light on the previously unknown points of its structure, as well as on its affinities.

I have thought it might be of interest to the Society to lay before it a short account of some temperature observations which I succeeded in making at the Great Geysir of Iceland, in the month of August last year. As the circumstances of my visit to the island obliged me to limit my stay at that remarkable spring to a few hours, and as, during that time and for 48 hours previously, no great eruption occurred, I fear my results must appear somewhat meagre and unsatisfactory. The very interesting nature, however, of the problem of the action of the Great Geysir, and the difficulty of securing any reliable observations at all in so inaccessible a region, will perhaps be deemed sufficient grounds for my taking up the time of the Society with these few remarks. So far as my results go, they confirm very remarkably those of Professor R. Bunsen, who, with a companion, spent more than ten days at the spot in July 1846, and to whom science is indebted for the now generally received theory of the action of the Great Geysir. An account of his observations was given in the “Annalen” for 1847, and to it I shall refer frequently in the course of these remarks.

In an excursion of Professor Geikie's class to North Berwick (5th February), a layer of titaniferous iron sand was found lying along the shore for a short distance.

The rocks at this locality consist chiefly of dull green and red trap-tuffs, traversed by dykes and veins of basalt. Immediately in front of the spot where the iron sand was met with several intrusive masses of dark heavy basalt occur. It was evidently from the decomposition and trituration of this rock that the iron sand came, which has been assorted by the waves along the upper margin of the beach.

The investigations recorded in this paper were undertaken for the purpose of elucidating the action of the bile salts on the animal economy. The chief workers in this field of inquiry have been Frerichs and Kühne, and the results obtained have been to a great extent contradictory.

The author gives the results of his examination of the subject in the following propositions:—

1. That the sacrifices of the Greeks were offered to the gods with the idea that the food and drink would gratify them, and that the other offerings would in some way or other be pleasing to them; that the common ′people continued to offer up sacrifices with this belief till the end of Paganism; but that as the more cultivated classes came to believe that the gods did not stand in need of food, drink, or of gifts from them, substitutions became more and more general with them.

All zoologists, who have accepted the placental system of classification of the Mammalia, agree in placing the Ruminantia amongst the Indeciduata.

As is well known, the fœtal portion of the placenta in Ruminants consists of a number of distinct cotyledons. Each cotyledon is composed of numerous branched villi, which fit into pits or depressions situated in mound-like elevations of the wall of the uterus, called the maternal cotyledons.

In the Sitzungsberichte of the Munich Academy, Professor Beetz has recently published a review of a paper by Mr J. A. Ewing and myself on “The Electrical Conductivity of certain Saline Solutions,” which was read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh during the session of 1872–73, and is published in their Transactions. I take the earliest opportunity of discussing the strength of the arguments on which his criticisms are based. Unfortunately, on account of Mr Ewing's being at present in South America, I am unable to communicate with him. I alone am therefore responsible for the contents of the present paper.

In many parts of Scotland there are indications that our existing rivers reached much higher levels than at present, and that large bodies of water prevailed over districts which are now dry land.

As these facts suggest important speculations as to the physical conditions and climate of the country, it is desirable that they be investigated, before becoming more indistinct from the combined effects of weather and land improvements.

J'ai reçu par une voie détournée, un article de M. Edward Sang, intitulé “Remarks on the great Logarithmic and Trigonometrical Tables computed in the Bureau du Cadastre under the direction of M. Prony.” Cet article, qui parait avoir été publié dans les “Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Session, 1874–1875,” m'a été adressé à l'Observatoire de Paris. Or je n'ai pas l'honneur d'être astronome. Je suis simplement un inspecteur général des Ponts et Chaussées, ami de la science qu'il a cultivée et qu'il cultive encore dans les trop courts instants de loisir que lui laisse sa carrière professionelle. L'Observatoire de Paris a d'ailleurs bien voulu me reiivoyer la brochure à mon domicile, rue du-bac No. 38, à Paris.

M. Edward Sang, dans un article dont je viens de rappeler le tître, a mentionné de la manière la plus flatteuse les travaux que j'ai publiées sur la matière des logarithmes, et notamment sur la grande operation qu'a dirigée Prony à la fin du siècle dernier. Je ne puis que l'en remercier; n'entendant d'ailleurs intervenir en aucun façon dans le fond de la controverse qui s'est engagée entre ce savant et le rédacteur de la feuille scientifique intitulée “Nature.” Mais je lui dois, autant qu'à la très honorable Société Royale d'Edimbourg, des explications sur différents points de fait et de doctrine, qu'il regarde comme ressortant de mes écrits, écrits qu'il a mal interprètés, sans doute par suite d'une connaissance incomplète de la langue Française.

Mr Edward Sang, in the above cited article, makes most flattering mention of the works which I have published on the subject of Logarithms, and particularly on the great operations performed in the end of the last century under the direction of Prony. I cannot but thank him, yet without wishing to intervene in any way in the controversy between him and the editor of the scientific periodical “Nature.” But I owe it to him, as well as to the honourable Royal Society of Edinburgh, to give explanations on several points of fact and of doctrine which he regards as deducible from my writings; writings which he has misinterpreted, doubtless from an incomplete knowledge of the French language. In preparing the following note I am aware that I am exposed to a danger of the same kind, and therefore count upon Mr Sang's indulgence, as he may assuredly count upon mine.