382 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Savilian professor of geometry at Ox- 

 ford. Flower's family life with his 

 seven children was particularly happy. 

 At the age of thirty he gave up the 

 practise of surgery to become conserv- 

 ator of the museum of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons. Here he remained 

 for twenty-two years until in 1884 he 

 succeeded Owen as director of the 

 Natural History Branch of the British 

 Museum whose new building in South 

 Kensington had been opened two years 



in museum methods which have been 

 followed everywhere. He had wide in- 

 terests and filled many positions of 

 trust and honor. Thus he was presi- 

 dent of the Zoological Society of Lon- 

 don from 1879 until his death in 1899. 



GEOLOGICAL PHOTOGRAPHS. 



Mr. Osmund W. Jeffs, in 1889, ad- 

 vocated the formation of a collection 

 of geological photographs, and the com- 

 mittee of the British Association with 



' 



The Whin Sill, Teesdale. 



before. This position Flower held un- 

 til his health failed in 1898. 



During these years Flower published 

 volumes on the osteology of the mam- 

 malia and on other subjects and a great 

 number of special papers on compara- 

 tive anatomy and zoology, on anthro- 

 pology and on museum administration. 

 Only three years after the publication 

 of the 'Origin of Species' he arranged 

 the collections of the Hunterian Mu- 

 seum to illustrate and as it were make 

 tangible the doctrines of evolution. 

 One of the sicps in this direction con- 

 sisted in obliterating the demarkation 

 between recent and extinct forms. In 

 many ways Flower made improvements 



this object in view was formed the 

 following year. Mr. Jeffs acted as 

 secretary of the committee until 1896, 

 when he was succeeded by Professor W. 

 \Y. Watts, and work has been carried 

 forward actively, the number of photo- 

 graphs numbering 3,754 in 190:3. in 

 1899 plans were made for the publica- 

 tion of a series of platinotype prints 

 and lantern slides to be distributed to 

 subscribers, and three issues contain- 

 ing seventy-two photographs have been 

 issued. These photographs are accom- 

 panied by descriptions by well known 

 geologists and are of much scientific 

 and educational value. We reproduce 

 here two of the photographs. 



