LINKEAX SOCIETY OF LONDOX. 55 



held for two years, after which he accepted the Chair of Natural 

 History in the University of St. Andrews. 



During the seven years which witnessed these rapid migrations, 

 Nicholson worked unceasingly and laid down the lines of his 

 later and fuller achievements. His prize essay ' On the Geology 

 of Cuniherland and Westmoreland,' followed in due course by 

 masterly Reports oa the Pauua dredged up in Lake Ontario, and 

 on the Silurian and Devonian Rocks of that Province, had placed 

 him in the front rank of contemporary palaeontologists and field- 

 geologists ; and, as though ths were insufficient, we find him 

 while still in Toronto producing the first edition of his ' Manual of 

 Palseontulogy,' and the first part of his 'Munograph of the British 

 G-raptolites.' 



While at St. Andrews Nicholson effected a thorough re- 

 organization of the academic courses entrusted to his charge, and, 

 as was his wont, he sought opportunity to extend his sphere of 

 influence, devoting his spare time to the extension of University 

 teaching to Dundee. Throughout his seven years' tenure of the 

 St. Andrews Chair, he worked most energetically at the educa- 

 tional aspects of his science, and he at the same time exhibited 

 an even more astounding activity as an investigator than before. 

 Apart from his minor papers, which were numerous, he during this 

 period produced a couple of large memoirs, on the ' Tabulate Corals 

 of the Palaeozoic Period,' and on the ' Structure and Affinities 

 of the Genus 3Io7ificuIipo}'a and its Subgenera,' and, in collabora- 

 tion with Mr. H. Etheridge, Jun., an equally important woik on 

 the ' Silurian Fossils of the Girvan District in Ayrshire,' reliev- 

 ing the monotony with fresh editions of his Text-books, and a 

 popular work entitled ' The Ancient Life-history of the Earth.' 



During the Sessions 1878 to 1881 Nicholson acted as locum 

 tenens for Sir Wyville Thomson, then incapacitated by ill-health, 

 and delivered Natural History Courses in the Edinburgh Un'- 

 versity. He later became a candidate for the Chair itself, without 

 success, and in 1882, on the appointment of Pr^ifessor Cossar Ewarfc 

 to the same, he was made Regius Professor of Natural History in 

 the University of Aberdeen, holding the office till death. Under 

 his charge the department flourished and did exceeding well, if 

 only that it produced the present Superintendent of the Indian 

 Museum, Dr. A. Alcock, whose 'Investigator' Reports rank 

 foremost among post-Challeugerian work in tlie Marine Zoology 

 of the Old World. But Nicholson, compelled by the restrictions of 

 the new ordinances to devote his euergies to immediate reform 

 in the class-room and the organization of a Laboratory Course, 

 for a time relinquished his activity as an original investigator. 

 This notwithstanding, he continued to re-edit his Manuals, and 

 although the first edition of that on Zoology was notoriously 

 deficient, it is greatly to the credit of its author that, undaunted 

 by hostile criticism, he should have made the later editions worthy 

 the confidence and support of the most exacting of teachers. 

 The appointment to the Aberdeen Chair gave him the chance of 



