408 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



in Jermyn Street. In 1819 Mr. De la Beche became a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society, and in 1821 of the Linnean. In 1831 he filled 

 the office of Secretary to the Geological Society, and from 1835 to 

 1846 he was its Foreign Secretary. In 1847 and 1848 he became 

 its President, and his Addresses to the Society in 1848 and 1849 

 are published in the 4th and 5th volumes of its ' Journal.' At the 

 Anniversary of the Society in 1854, he received the Wollaston Pal- 

 ladium Medal. He was knighted in 1848, and in 1851 he took a 

 prominent part in the management of the Geological Department of 

 the Great Exhibition. His services to Geology were highly appre- 

 ciated in foreign countries ; he was elected in 1853 a Correspondent 

 of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, and about the same time he 

 received the Order of Leopold of Belgium, and was created a Knight 

 of the Danish Order of Dannebrog. Paralysis had for some time 

 been making slow but certain advances over his frame ; but the 

 labours of the Geological Survey and the business of the Museum 

 occupied his attention almost to the last hour of his life. He died on 

 the 13th of April in the present year, at the age of 59; and was 

 buried on the 19th of the same month in the Cemetery of Kensal 

 Green. Of his scientific merits, and of the energy and success with 

 which his plans for the advancement of Geology M'ere carried out, 



' the records of his life bear ample witness ; he possessed besides a 

 large amount of general knowledge, he excelled in accurate observa- 

 tion, he wrote with facility and clearness, and had, moreover, great 



" skill in rapid delineation, whether of scientific subjects, of landscape 

 scenery, or of characteristic sketches. His cheerful disposition, 

 pleasing manners, and fund of humour rendered him an agreeable 

 companion ; and his tact in availing himself of circumstances con- 

 tributed greatly to the influence which he exercised in the cause of 

 science, both with individuals and with members of the Government. 

 Edward Forbes, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. 8;c., Regius Professor of 

 Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, was the son of a 

 banker in the Isle of Man, and born at Douglas on the 12th of 

 February 1815. His propensity to Natural History dated from his 

 earliest childhood. At seven years old he had formed a small collection 

 of natural objects ; at twelve he had studied Buckland's ' Reliquiae 

 Diluvianae,' Parkinson's ' Organic Remains,' and Conybeare's ' Geo- 

 logy of England,' and had compiled for himself a Manual of British 

 Natural History in all its branches. His talent for drawing was also 

 early developed ; and at the close of his school education, and at the 

 age of seventeen, when the choice of a profession lay before him, he 

 decided in favour of Art, and became in the spring of 1832 a pupil of 



