LIN^fEAIT SOCIETY OF LO>"DON. XXIU 



the 6tli of January, 1860, iu his 81st year. At this spot INIr. 

 Curtis' talents as an ornamental gardener appear to have been 

 displayed to great advantage, and in opposition even to apparently 

 insurmountable difficulties. 



For the follo^ving particulars respecting this abode I am in- 

 debted to Mr. Adam White, who paid Mr. Curtis a visit in the 

 year 1858. The place is named La Chaise, and is one of the rocky 

 knolls lying close to Eozel Bay, in the island of Jersey. Many 

 years ago Mr. Curtis was struck with the sheltered situation of 

 the bay, and thought of it as a place to which he would like to 

 retire. For a trifling sum he purchased the rock and immediately 

 began to transform it iuto a Chinese garden. It was so steep and 

 bare, that, excepting a scanty sprinkling of rock flowers, it pro- 

 duced nothing and seemed incapable of being tiu'ned to any 

 account. By quarrying the rock, however, he made a smooth 

 surface on which he biult a house, and by dint of laboiu* he carried 

 winding walks to the top, and succeeded in bringing up some of 

 the rich vegetable soil of the island, with which he filled artificial 

 fissures and hoUows in the rock. The result was, that in a few 

 years La Chaise Avas covered vdih a mass of the most varied vege- 

 tation, and in 1858 Mr. Curtis informed Mr. White that he had 

 at least 2000 different species of plants, shrubs, trees, and flowers 

 growing in the utmost luxurance on what a few years before was 

 a bare rock. Shrubs that require a greenhouse even in the Isle 

 of AVight, stood all seasons at Eozel Bay Avithout any injiu-y. 



Thomas Forster, II.B., A.S.S., a nephew of our late much- 

 lamented Treasurer, Mr. Edward Forster, was elected in 1811. 

 He had lived abroad for many years, and died at Brussels on the 

 2nd of February, 1860, at the age of 70. He was a man of eccen- 

 tric habits and views, and an accomplished linguist. Respecting 

 the department of science to which he was more particularly ad- 

 dicted I am not informed, but he has written on the subject of 

 the Migration of Swallows. He also published, some twenty years 

 ago, " An Account of Myself and my Family," in which any further 

 particulars concerning him will be found. 



Arthur ILenfrey was bom, of English parents, at Aberdeen, on 

 the 1st November, 1819, and died on the 7th September, 1859. 



Originally intended for the medical profession, he studied 

 medicine and surgery at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and was 

 admitted a member of the College of Surgeons in 1843. His pre- 

 carious health, however, owing to a distressing asthmatic afiection, 

 precluding him from the practice of liis profession, he devoted 



