OBITUARY NOTICES. 57 



small an area. Bones of animals which are now only met with 

 in different and widely separated parts of the world are mingled 

 with those of extinct species of elephant and rhinoceros and 

 with the primitive flint implements of the men who were their 

 contemporaries. 



What the makers of these implements were like, however, 

 is quite unknown, as no human remains have ever been dis- 

 covered, but in point of culture they could not have differed 

 much from the more primitive of existing savages. 



[I have drawn all the above figures to actual size, and have given the 

 Essex specimens represented to the Essex Field Club's Museum at Stratford.] 



OBITUARY NOTICES. 



THE LATE GEORGE JAMES SYMONS, F.R.S. 



[With Portrait, Plate II. ] 



It was with sincere regret that all students of science heard of the death 

 on March loth, 1900, of one of the greatest meteorologists that England has 

 ever produced. By the death of Mr. Symons the Essex Field Club lost a 

 highly esteemed Honorary Member, one always willing to give advice and 

 assistance in the work of the Club, while his genial personahty and stores of 

 information were thoroughly appreciated on those occasions when his 

 numerous employments permitted him to attend our meetings. 



His co-adjutor and fellow-worker for nearly 30 years, Mr. H. Sowerby 

 Wallis, has most kindly furnished us with the published memoirs of Mr. 

 Symons from which to select materials for this notice. We have chosen that 

 in The Times for March 13th, 1900, as the basis of the following, supplemented 

 by information given in the Quarterly Jour : Roy. Meteorological Society (April, 

 1900) and in Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, which was founded by 

 its editor and proprietor in 1866. "We have to thank the Council of the 

 Royal Meteorological Society and the Secretary, Mr. W. Marriott, for the 

 cliche of the excellent portrait accompanying this notice. 



George James Symons was born in London on August 6th, 1838, the only 

 child of Joseph and Georgina Symons, of Pimlico. He was educated at St. 

 Peter's Collegiate School, Eaton Square, and by a private tutor in Leicester- 

 shire. From his boyhood he exhibited a love of natural science, and it is said 

 that he offered his services as an assistant at the age of 16 to Mr James 

 Glaisher, who, however, attempted to dissuade him from pursuing scientific 

 investigation on the ground that it did not pay. Symons, nevertheless, 

 persisted in his aim. At the age of 18 he joined the Meteorological Society, 

 which Mr. Glaisher had founded, and in the course of another 12 months 

 found employment as one of the Registrar General's meteorological reporters, 

 an office which he continued to hold to the time of his death. For a few 



