OBITUARY. 



JOHN RAE, F.R.S. 

 Born 1813. Died July, 1893. 



AS briefly noticed last month, this veteran Arctic explorer has passed 

 away. He was a native of the Orkneys, and at the age of 16 

 entered the medical school of the University of Edinburgh. In 1833 

 he was appointed surgeon on one of the vessels of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, and in 1846 he undertook an important survey of the 

 North-east Coast of North America. Two years later Dr. Rae 

 accompanied Sir John Richardson in searching for the missing 

 Franklin expedition ; and the next six years were occupied almost 

 continually in exploring the Arctic regions. He first proved King 

 William's Land to be an island, and his detailed surveys have placed 

 him in the front rank of the pioneers in Arctic exploration. Besides 

 numerous smaller memoirs, Dr. Rae published a " Narrative of an 

 Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847 " (1850) 

 and in 1852 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical 

 Society. 



JAMES WILLIAM DAVIS. 

 Born April 15, 1846. Died July 21, 1893. 



AS briefly announced last month, a sad breach has been made in 

 the ranks of amateur naturalists by the death of Mr. James W. 

 Davis, of Halifax, at the early age of 47. Born at Leeds in 1846, 

 and educated at the local grammar school, he and a brother succeeded 

 to the cloth-dyeing business of his father ; and his active pursuit of 

 scientific investigation was carried on only in such leisure as he could 

 secure from business and from the numerous political, municipal, and 

 educational movements in which he was a leading figure. The 

 patronage of Art, Literature, and Science, and researches in Geology, 

 Palaeontology, and Archaeology, formed Mr. Davis's means of recrea- 

 tion ; and it is astonishing how much he was able to accomplish in 

 the limited time at his command. 



Though a prominent worker in the Yorkshire Societies from his 

 earliest youth, Mr. Davis did not enter the scientific world as an 

 original investigator until 1873, when he became a Fellow of the 

 Geological Society and a member of the British Association. At 



