1844.] Linnean Society. 203 



but feel a pleasure in recording that he was for forty-two years a 

 Fellow of this Society, and that, however occupied in other pursuits, 

 he never ceased to take a warm interest in botanical investigations. 

 His business being that of a chemist, Mr. Allen's attention was 

 naturally directed to that science ; and in conjunction Avith Mr. Pepys 

 he published several valuable chemical papers in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions ' of the R oyal S ociety, of which he became a Fellow in 



1807. The first of these, " On the quantity of Carbon in Carbonic 

 Acid and on the Nature of the Diamond," was published in 1807 ; and 

 was succeeded in 1808 and 1809 by two papers " On the changes 

 produced in Atmospheric Air and Oxygen Gas by Respiration," and 

 in 1829 by another " On the Respiration of Birds," — subjects which 

 he and his friend Mr. Pepys illustrated by a series of the most deli- 

 cate experiments. 



The only paper contributed by Mr. Allen to our own Transactions 

 was read in May 1805, and contains an account of some experiments 

 made by him on a substance called Dapeche, sent to Sir Joseph Banks 

 from South America by M. de Humboldt, Avhich, although very dif- 

 ferent in external appearance, he determined by analysis to be a mere 

 modification of Caoutchouc. 



Mr. Allen was for several years a veiy popular Lecturer on Ex- 

 perimental Philosophy at the Royal Institution ; and for more than 

 twenty years (viz. from 1804 to 1827) he filled the office of Lecturer 

 on the same subject at Guy's Hospital. In 1807, cooperating with 

 the late Mr. Joseph Fox, he first directed his energies to assist in the 

 struggle which Joseph Lancaster was then making to establish his 

 system of mutual instruction ; and from this period, his time and at- 

 tention were by degrees almost wholly devoted to that great under- 

 taking. His death occurred in the 74th year of his age, at Lind- 

 field in Sussex, where he had resided for many years for nearly 

 half his time, occupied in the superintendence of some important 

 experiments for the promotion of an improved condition of the work- 

 ing classes in agriculture by means of education and allotments of 

 land, on which subject he published several interesting essays. 



Richard Forester Forester, Esq., M.D., President of the Derby 

 Philosophical Society, and for five-and-forty j-ears a Fellow of the 

 Linnean Society, died on the 5th of December last, in the 73rd year 

 of his age. He was at the head of his profession in the town of 

 Derby, and took a leading part in most of the useful and benevolent 

 institutions of his neighbourhood ; being also the senior magistrate 

 of the county, and an alderman and a magistrate of the borougli. He 

 was distinguished for classical attainments and a refined taste ; and 



