William crawford Williamson. 29§ 



July, 1832. The authors repeatedly record their aclmowledgments 

 to the boy geologist, " our excellent aud indefatigable correspon- 

 dent, Mr. Williamson, jun." When he was nineteen years old he 

 was appointed curator of the museum of the Manchester Natural 

 History Society. Destined for the medical profession, he, after 

 three years' service in the museum, resumed his studies, which he 

 completed at University College, London, and in 1841 he began to 

 practise in Manchester, 



All his spare time was devoted to the study of the Foraminifera, 

 and this resulted in the preparation of his great work on these 

 animals which was published by the Eay Society. In 1851 he 

 was elected Professor of Biology and Geology in Owens College. 

 He published valuable memoirs on the minute structure of the 

 bones and teeth of man in the Philosoiihical Transactions, and in 

 1854 was elected F.E.S. 



In 1867 I was engaged in working out the species of British 

 Ci/cadece, and had to face the investigation of Zamia gigas. Prof. 

 Williamson supplied the drawing of this fossil which was published 

 in Lindley and Hutton's Fossil Flora in 1885, and had continued 

 to study this remarkable plant. I accordingly applied to him for 

 help, aud he most generously sent me an extensive memoir with 

 drawings which he had prepared, aud placed the whole of his 

 work absolutely at my disposal. I obtained the author's per- 

 mission to present it to the Linnean Society, and in a somewhat 

 condensed form it was published, with two quarto plates, in the 

 Transactions of that body in 1868. No better interpretation of 

 the fossil has been given ; we still wait for an intelligent exposition 

 of the affinities of the two inflorescences to any known Cycadean 

 fructification. 



Probably the preparation of this memoir for publication brought 

 Dr. Williamson back to his original studies. This was further 

 favoured by the discovery of calcareous nodules in the coal-beds of 

 Oldham. These supplied the first materials on which he worked. He 

 afterwards obtained similar specimens from the amygdaloidal traps 

 of Burntisland, and the ash rocks of Arran. He acquired the art of 

 slicing these fossiliferous concretions. By extraordinary applica- 

 tion he produced a great series of slides : these supplied the 

 materials on which the memoirs were based that have appeared 

 almost every year in the Fhilosojjhical Transactions since 1871. No 

 such store of information on the minute structure of the plants of 

 the Coal Measures anywhere else exists. They abound in descrip- 

 tions of hitherto unknown forms, and in additions to the knowledge 

 of previously known forms. As they represent the progress of the 

 author's knowledge through the discovery of additional material, 

 they were not issued in systematic order. Happily for some time 

 he associated with himself in the revision of his work Dr. D. H. 

 Scott, Keeper of the Jodrcll Laboratory, Kew. They issued, some 

 months ago, the first part of a second series of memoirs dealing 

 with Calamites and allied fossils. In the interests of science it is 

 most desirable that this work should be continued, and that the 

 imtuense collection of slides formed by Dr. Williamson should be 



