Geographical Distribution of Mammals,' 1859; a 'Manual of Paleontology.' The long list of papers published in the 'proceedings' of learned societies, to be found in the Royal Society's invaluable catalogue (numbering over three hundred and sixty), includes many the scientific value of most of which would have given an abiding fame to their author."
Professor Owen was a member of the commission to inquire into the health of towns, in 1843 and 1846; was one of the commissioners on the health of the metropolis, in 1846 and 1848; and was a member of the commission on the meat-supply in 1849. In 1848 he published a special report on the sanitary condition of his native town of Lancaster, which was followed by the introduction of an improved sewerage and a new water-supply. He was one of the commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and was chairman of two of the juries in the Great Exhibition of Paris in 1855.
In the way of honors, Professor Owen received the Royal Medal from the Royal Society in 1842, and the Copley Medal in 1846; the "Ordre pour le Mérite," from the King of Portugal, in 1851, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon III in 1855; degrees from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin; and an honorary Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. In 1858 he was elected one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France, in place of the botanist, Robert Brown. Prussia gave him its order of merit, and Italy its order of St. Maurice and St. Lazare; the Emperor of Brazil, the Imperial Order of the Rose; the Queen of England, the order of the Bath. He was President of the British Association in 1857, and his name is on the lists of honorary or corresponding members of most of the learned societies of Europe and America. In 1874 he gave new evidence of the extent and comprehensiveness of his researches by presenting to the Anthropological Institute an interesting paper on the races of ancient Egypt, as depicted in the sculptures. Continuing his studies in this direction, as well as in the whole field of anthropology, he made before the International Congress of Orientalists in the same year, as president of its ethnological section, the most remarkable address of the meeting, in which he recommended adherence to the scientific method in the study of ethnology, and particularly of ancient Egyptian and Oriental history.
In 1880 "Nature" reported Professor Owen as still active in labor at an age when most men have to cease from their work; and added that no better proof could be given of a spirit still young, than to witness the energy with which he had entered upon the occupation of the new home for natural history at South Kensington. Still, in the present year, by the latest accounts received from him, though he is seventy-nine years old, he was in good health, and publishing important papers.
