XXXU PROCEEDINGa OF THE 



OBITUARY NOTICES. 



The Secretaries then laid before the Society the following Notices 

 of Deceased Members. 



John Foester was born August 4th, 1793, at Lambeth, where his 

 father was then practising the medical profession. He was educated 

 at St. Paul's School, and afterwards became a student at the then 

 United Hospitals of Guy's and St. Thomas's. He remained there 

 an unusually long period, during which time he devoted much atten- 

 tion to chemistry, and up to his later years he took great interest 

 in every thing connected with that branch of science. His name 

 will always be associated with the first practical application of 

 the salts of strontia and baryta to theatrical purposes. He was 

 appKed to by the managers of Astley's Theatre to provide, for a piece 

 then about to be produced called the " Blood-Red Knight," some 

 easier method of burning strontia than the one then in use, and he 

 invented what is now known as " red fire." 



Soon after leaving the hospital Mr. Forster commenced to study 

 botany ; but his devotion to science was unavoidably of short duration, 

 on account of his being compelled to take upon himself the arduous 

 duties of a general practitioner, owing to the deaths of his father and 

 his brother. 



After 30 years of practice, and when he found that his eldest son 

 (now one of the surgeons of Guy's Hospital) did not intend to join 

 him, he retired from business ; and in 1851 he left Lambeth and 

 thenceforth resided at Netting Hill until his death. During his pro- 

 fessional career Mr. Forster was a frequent attendant at the meetings 

 of the Linnean Society, and he never found any lack of occupation 

 after leaving his profession. He became a member of the Royal 

 Institution and a regular attendant at the lectures there. Visits to 

 the country in search of objects for his microscope, and the study of 

 astronomy in company with the late Sir James South, filled up the 

 time of a naturally vigorous-minded and healthy man, to whom illness 

 was unknown until the attack of pneumonia which carried him off, 

 after a duration of 14 days, on the 10th of April, 1873. 



Mr. Forster was elected a Fellow of this Society on the 7th of 

 December, 1819. 



Thomas Cavekhill Jekdon was the son of Mr. Archibald Jerdou, 

 of Bonjedward, Roxburgh, and was born in 1811. In 1835 he 



