304 The Irish Natu? alist. December, 



ticall}^ thoughtful and enquiring manner, as the argument be- 

 came unfolded by the speaker. Yet, all the time he might be 

 concealing intellectual weapons, which could utterly demolish 

 the position, if once the}' were called out into play. The pre- 

 sent writer remembers how a somewhat verbose speaker, at a 

 meeting of the Academy's Council, concluded his harangue 

 by turning to Mr. Close, with the words, " And I am sure in 

 all this the Treasurer heartily agrees with me." 



" No," said Mr. Close ; " I disagree entirely." And this was 

 his sole contribution to the debate. 



It was this disinclination to press his own opinions, firmly 

 rooted as they always were, which led him to publish two 

 works under assumed names. Through the kindness of Mrs. 

 M. Close, who has also supplied the portrait reproduced in the 

 present number, a copy of the second edition of the rare Aiisa 

 Dynamica, by "John O'Toole,'' lies before us. ''Claudius 

 Kennedy" published A few chapters in Astro7ioniy in 1894, i^^ 

 which such questions as the tides, the moon's variation, and 

 Foucault's pendulum, are discussed from an original stand- 

 point, and in a manner that contrasts vividly with the loose- 

 ness of expression, and the slurring over of difficulties, which 

 characterise many of the elementary works regarded as "good 

 enough for a student." 



In 1897, ^^^- Close contributed what proved to be his last 

 geological paper, on granite boulders near Dublin, to the 

 Irish Naturalist ; and in the following year he wrote for the 

 same journal the obituary notice of his old friend Samuel 

 Haughton. Preparing quietly for his approaching end. he 

 arranged in 1902 for the distribution of many of his books and 

 papers. Towards Christmas in that 3'ear, he seemed somewhat 

 stronger than of late, and he would speak almost petulantly 

 of his inability to do as much as he could desire. In March, 

 1903, he laid his last accounts before the Council of the Royal 

 Irish Academy, and withdrew from the desk in the Treasurer's 

 office, where he had attended almost daily for so. many years. 

 He died on September 12th, having performed to the full the 

 life-task that he had set before himself. No thought of per- 

 sonal ambition had ever stirred him. He regarded even the 

 Ro3^al Irish Academy, in which he might have won pre- 

 eminence, as a kind of monastic order, in which he was one of 



