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OBITUARY NOTICE. 

 EDWARD ALFRED MINCHIN, M.A., F.R.S. 



{Born February 2V>th, I860; died September 30th, 1915.) 



The members of the Quekett Microscopical Club will have heard 

 with the deepest regret the sad news of the death of our former 

 President, Professor E. A. Minchin, MA., F.R.S. , which took 

 place on September 30th at Selsey, at the comparatively early 

 age of forty-nine. 



Professor Minchin was one of the most distinguished men of 

 science who have ever occupied the presidential chair of this 

 Club, and his stimulating addresses will long be remembered by 

 those of us who were privileged to hear them, while the kindly 

 courtesy with which he was always ready to share his unrivalled 

 knowledge of his special subjects endeared him to all his fellow - 

 workers. It is to Professor Minchin that I owe my own intro- 

 duction to the Club, and it may interest my fellow-members to 

 hear of the cordial appreciation with which he spoke to me of the 

 Club and its work. It was quite evident that he derived a very 

 real satisfaction from his association with its members. 



The Quekett Club, however, formed but a small part of the 

 field in which Professor Minchin exercised his scientific activities. 

 Both as a teacher and as an original investigator of the first rank, 

 he was well known to zoologists in all parts of the civilised world. 

 His luminous general treatises, especially those on the Sponges 

 and the Protozoa, are landmarks in the progress of zoological 

 science, while at the same time his own researches have broken 

 new ground in many directions. 



He was, I think, the most conscientious investigator that I 

 have ever had the good fortune to meet. In the study of Spong- 

 ology in particular he introduced a standard of painstaking 

 accuracy that was sorely needed, and set an example of thorough- 

 ness that will be hard indeed for those who follow him to emulate. 

 His most striking and important contributions to this depart- 

 ment of zoology are his beautiful researches on the histology 



