34 PEOCEEDINGS OF TTTE 



public was appealed to for f iiucls and responded very liberally. 

 A fine building was erected in a central position, and Mr. Drew 

 undertook liimself the duties and responsibilities of Hon. Curator. 

 To this work he devoted himself, in the most unselfish and 

 unsparing ^vay, obtaining collections by gift and purchase from 

 abroad, travelling in Australia and collecting himself, and placing 

 all his townsfolk under perpetual contribution. Concentrating 

 every hour he could spare from his increasing business to this 

 labour of love, he succeeding in forming in less than ten years 

 one of the most interesting museums in the Colony. In addition 

 to the routine work of his ofllce as Curator, he gave popular 

 entertainments, delivered lectures, and did everything in his 

 power to make the Museum an educational institution, especiall}'" 

 for the young ; and his efforts were crowned with a large measure 

 of success. Death, from a sudden attack of heart disease on 

 December 18th, 1901, found him busy at his work and full of 

 plans for the future. Without a moment's warning, he dropped 

 down dead in his own shop, — much lamented by his townspeople, 

 for whom he had done so much, and leaving behind him in the 

 Wanganui Museum, of which he was the founder, a memorial of 

 A\hich his family may well be proud. He spent some years of his 

 life exploring the post-tertiary deposits on the banks of the 

 Wanganui Eiver, and furnished valuable collections of fossil shells 

 to the other Museums. His collection of New Zealand fishes (all 

 prepared bv himself) is perhaps the finest in the Colony. 



[W. L. BULLEE.] 



The death of Sir Joseph Henry GtILBERT at Harpenden on 

 December 23, 1901, removes from our midst the survivor of the 

 renowned Lawes and Gilbert experiments, which have been 

 conducted under the originators for nearly sixty years. 



Sir Joseph Gilbert was a native of Hull, and was born there in 

 1817, his father beiug a nonconformist minister. His mother, Ann 

 Gilbert, came of the Taylors of Ougar, and was one of the two 

 sisters, Ann and Jane Taylor, whose nursery poems have been 

 familiar to children for foiu' generations. A gunshot accident at 

 school practically disabled one of his eyes for life, and much of 

 his literary work in after-days had to be dictated. From school 

 he went to Glasgow University, and there studied Chemistry 

 under Anthony Todd Thomson ; and here he seems to have first 

 met with Mr. John Lawes, whose name was to be so firmly 

 connected with his own. From Glasgow he went to Giesseu, 

 where Liebig was Professor of Chemistry, and here he took his 

 degree Ph.D. in 1840. Dr. Gilbert after this returned to his 

 fomner teacher at Glasgow, and acted as his assistant for a short 

 time, leaving him in 1841 to take up calico-printing and dyeing 

 near Manchester. 



The year 1843 witnessed the introduction of Dr. Gilbert to 

 what we must deem the work of his life, his association with 

 Mr., afterwards Sir, John Bennet Lawes, Bart., of Eothamsted. 



