London, England/london2F-400
Previous | Home | NextThis is a ceramic plaque mounted on the site of Wollaston's house in 1934 by the Geological Society of London at Burlington House on Piccadilly {LINK: London2C-430}. Wollaston's house was destroyed in World War II; the plaque was recovered and stored at Burlington House. Efforts by prominent scientists to reestablish a plaque devoted to Wollaston have not been successful. The highest award of the Geological Society is the Wollaston medal, originally made of palladium (which he discovered at this site). Recipients of the Wollaston award have included Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) who formulated the theory of glaciation as the cause of Switzerland's topography and James Lovelock (1919- ) who proposed the Gaia hypothesis, which describes the Earth as a virtual superorganism.
