OBITUARY. 
GEORGE DOWKER. 
Born, Aprit 2, 1828 ; Diep, SEPTEMBER 22, 1899. 
Kent has to deplore the death of one of her foremost geologists, botanists, 
and archaeologists. Mr. Dowker had only returned from the meeting of the 
British Association a few hours before his death, which occurred quite suddenly 
at his home in Ramsgate. Born at Stourmouth House, Stourmouth, he was 
educated at Sandwich Grammar School, and trained for agriculture at Hodsdon 
Agricultural College. He began farming his father’s estate at the early age of 
30, but science claimed too much of his time to allow of his success. Asa 
botanist, Dowker was the authority on Kentish plants, many of the rarer species 
in the Flora of Kent, edited by Hanbury and Marshall, being associated with 
his name. As geologist, he was responsible for numerous papers, notably “ On 
the Chalk of Thanet,” and ‘“‘ On the Water Supply of East Kent.” As a micro- 
scopist, he was acquainted with the pond life of his district, and at one time was 
president of the Margate Microscopical Club. As archaeologist, he contributed 
to Archologia Cantiana many valuable papers on Richborough Castle, The 
Reculvers, and Roman antiquities at Wingham, Preston, and other places, and 
he it was who described the Saxon Cemetery at Wickhambreaux. 
Dowker’s collection of chalk flints is now in the Maidstone Museum, but he 
leaves behind an excellent herbarium of wild plants. He was buried at Stour- 
mouth, and Kent has lost a devoted and earnest student of a class only too rare 
in Thanet. 
The following deaths have been recently announced :— GRANT ALLEN, 
facile princeps as an exponent of evolutionary natural history, on Oct. 25, 
in his 51st year; Prof. Max Barru, director of the agricultural experiment 
station in Rufach (Alsace) on August 28, in his 44th year; on October 6, 
at the age of 63, Jonn BripGMan, entomologist and a vice - president 
of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society—he had presented his 
collections to the Norwich Museum; Sicismonpo Broci, a _ well-+known 
naturalist in Siena, on July 17, at the age of 48; Dr. Karn Brernyarp 
Briut, formerly professor of zootomy in the University of Vienna, on 
August 14, in Graz, at the age of 79; J. B. Carnoy, professor of botany 
in the Catholic University of Louvain, editor of La Cellule, well known 
for his researches on cell-structure and on the phenomena of maturation 
and fertilisation, on September 8, during a_ holiday in Switzerland, 63 
years of age; Chief-Justice C. P. Daty, at the age of 84, for many years 
president of the American Geographical Society, to which he rendered great 
services, also an enthusiastic botanist and one of the managers of the Botanical 
Garden of New York; Prof. THrEoDoR ELBERT, geologist in Berlin, at Gross- 
Lichterfelde, in his 42nd year ; Prof. JosepH Eruarpvt, formerly director of the 
Natural History Museum in the Castle at Koburg, in his 80th year; Dr. 
W. D. Harrman, conchyliologist, in West Chester, Pa., on August 16; at 
Geneva, Hrprotyre Lucas, entomological assistant in the Paris Museum of 
Natural History; on September 29, Dr. C. Russ, ornithologist, of Berlin ; 
Junius SCHARLOCK, an enthusiastic florist, at Graudenz, on August 14, in his 
90th year ; CHRISTIAN SCHWEMMER, botanist in Niirnberg; Dr. FRrEDRICH THEILE, 
author of several publications on natural science, at Lockwitz, near Dresden, in 
his 85th year ; Gaston TIssANDIER, founder and editor of the scientific weekly, 
La Nature, in Paris, on September 8, aged 56; Rev. Witt1am FARREN 
Wuire, entomologist, on July 21, at Bournemouth, in his 66th year. 
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