LIXXEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 3 1 



to carry on the business of a merchant in Liverpool and 

 ^Manchester. 



Attached to the study of natural history, Mr. Comber especially 

 devoted himself to the Diatomaceae. As far back as 1860 he 

 brought out in the ' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science ' 

 a list of Liverpool Diatomaceae, but a period of thirty years 

 elapsed before he again resumed scientific publication. In 1894 he 

 commented on the uncertainty of some characters used in specific 

 diagnosis in the Diatomaceae, followed by three papers on similar 

 topics, in 1895-97. He drew up the list of Diatomaceae collected 

 by Dr. Welwitsch in Angola in 1853-61, which appeared in 1901, 

 forming pages 382-395 of the second volume devoted to the 

 collections of the traveller mentioned, issued by the Trustees of 

 the British Museum. 



He retired from business about two years before his death, 

 which took place at his residence, Leigliton, Parkgate, near 

 Chester, on 24th January, 1902 ; he became a Fellow of this 

 Society, 2nd May, 1878. 



Carl Eduakd Ceamek was born on 4th March, 183], in Ziirich at 

 " Zum Weinberg in L'nterstrass," a house built by his father in 

 the early part of the century from the proceeds of the sale of a 

 mill on the banks of theLimmat, which had been in the possession 

 of several generations of his ancestors. He was the youngest of 

 the family, and survived all his sisters and his brother. His 

 mother, Magdalene Burkhard before her marriage, is described as a 

 woman of superior parts, and an admirable mother to her children. 



His devotion to natural history dated from his schooldays in 

 the Gymnasium of his native town ; many of his holidays were 

 spent at an imcle's at Grreifensee, where he collected plants, 

 beetles, and butterflies, and ransacked the collections in the 

 house. At nights he was instructed in the use of the astronomical 

 telescope, and at other times shown how to use the microscope. 



From the Gymnasium he passed to the Industrieschule ; he then 

 had the notion of becoming a chemist, and his first publication in 

 1850-52 is on a chemical topic. Thence he went to the University 

 of Zurich, where he met with Xiigeli, Heer,Eegel, and the lichenolo- 

 gist Hepp, and by whose lectures and teaching Cramer profited. 

 Amongst these, Nageli's influence was the greatest, and Cramer 

 may be ranked as a distinguished pupil of a professor who had 

 also as pupils such men as Schwendener, Leitgeb, Kny, and 

 Correus. Cramer's chief work belongs to Niigeli's school, and he 

 remained constant to its ideas and methods throughout his career, 

 and his biography of his master, issued in 1896, is an excellent 

 exposition of the same. 



In 1852 Niigeli was invited to Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and was 

 accompanied by Cramer; in 1855 the latter graduated at that 

 University, his Dissertation being entitled " Botanische Beitriige," 

 which was also pubHshed as the third Heft of the ' Pflanzen- 

 physiologische Untersuchungen ' of Xiigeli and Cramer, in the 



