250 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS. [May 23, 1859. 



Meantime his malady increased, and he died at Torquay, in Jan- 

 uary last, in the 60th year of his age. His death has occasioned 

 a blank in pursuits which require a mind of no common order, and 

 hi i loss will be severely felt by his widow and a numerous circle 

 of friends. 



Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke, who died recently at his seat of 

 Oakley in Northamptonshire, like several other associates who have 

 been recently taken from us, was also one of our earliest members. 

 Though a person of retiring and unostentatious habits, who seemed 

 to have no desire to take that part in public life for which his 

 descent, property, and station befitted him. Sir Arthur had all the 

 spirit of an adventurous traveller. In truth, it was he who had the 

 merit of establishing the Raleigh Club, which has now merged into 

 the Club of the Royal Geographical Society. An original member 

 of the Travellers' Club, which bore in the first instance a geo- 

 graphical character, our deceased associate felt so strongly that 

 many of the newly elected members did not sufficiently represent the 

 spirit of foreign exploration, that in the year 1821 he induced a cer- 

 tain number of his qualified associates to unite with him in setting 

 up a Dinner Club which should bear the name of the illustrious 

 Walter Raleigh. Of this club, which contained the names of most 

 of our leading travellers, including men who had explored Africa, 

 the Indies, America, and the Polar Regions, Sir Arthur Brooke con- 

 tinued to be President for many years, and during all that period, 

 when dinner clubs were more in vogue than at present, I can 

 testify that it was considered a feather in any man's cap to be 

 elected a member of the Raleigh. 



Sir Arthur Brooke was also a Fellow of the Royal Society, and 

 was favourably known to the public as the author of ' Travels 

 in Norway,' a work which gives a striking picture of the physical 

 features and natural history of that rugged land of glaciers and deep 

 fiords. 



Mr. William Weir, who was suddenly cut off in the midst of his 

 active and useful career as a man of letters, and who had distin- 

 guished himself by numerous contributions to the periodical and 

 daily press (latterly as Editor of the 'Daily News'), was a sound 

 geographer. 



Reared in the Scottish and German universities, and entering 

 into the profession of the law, his strong and cultivated mind 

 could unquestionably have secured for him a high position in 

 public life, had not an incurable deafness compelled him to abandon 



