292 NATURAL SCIENCE [May 



We also think that Prestwich might have occupied rather a 

 larger space in a paper devoted to the connection of Oxford with 

 geology. It is quite true that neither Prestwich nor Green fulfilled 

 the real functions of a professor of geology. They neither of them 

 formed a school or stirred at Oxford the ingenuous youth who are 

 so easily stirred into an interest in the most catholic of sciences, nor 

 did they even set tlieir geological museum in order ; but Prestwich 

 filled the chair of geology for a long time at Oxford, was distinctly 

 an old master in the science, and did much to help us to understand 

 the gravels and clays and sands that cover the broken bones of the 

 world with such a gently contoured mantle. May we hope that 

 when the mocos have gathered round Mr Sollas' head, there will be 

 as numerous, as distinguished, and as hearty a band of old Oxford 

 pupils to do him honour as the other day gathered round the Wood- 

 wardian professor of Cambridge. 



LUIDIUS 



A MORE serious and truly strange omission from the lecture by 

 Professor Sollas demands a separate note. It is indeed remarkable 

 to find no mention whatever of a man whose reputation was Euro- 

 pean, and whose fame has lasted to our own day — except, appar- 

 ently, " in his own country." Need we explain that we refer to 

 Edward Lhwyd, who succeeded Plot as keeper of the Ashmolean 

 Museum ? Honest Lhwyd, as he was often called, was a man 

 of no common industry, and spent much of his time travelling, chiefly 

 in Wales, to collect specimens for the museum, or to examine into 

 the languages, histories, and customs of the United Kingdom. The 

 merest fragment of his results was published, as the first and only 

 volume of the " Archaeologia Britannica " (1707). In geology, 

 Lhwyd's first work was the publication of a systematic catalogue of 

 the fossils and minerals in the Ashmolean collection, under the title 

 " Lithophylacii Britannici ichnographia " (1699). The University, 

 with remarkable meanness, refused to print the small octavo, and an 

 edition of 120 copies was issued at the expense of Sir Isaac Newton, 

 Sir Hans Sloane, and a few other learned men. After his death a 

 second edition, with much supplementary matter, was published by 

 William Huddesford (1760). No salary was attached to the post of 

 Ashmolean Cimeliarch, and the chief reward that Lhwyd obtained 

 from the University was the degree of M.A. honoris causa ; but in 

 return for this he had to deliver a public lecture upon natural 

 history, "one every year during the space of six years." Thus 

 originated his famous " Praelectio de Stellis marinis," first pub- 

 lished in J. H. Linck's folio of the " De Stellis marinis liber singularis " 

 (Leipzig, 1733). In November 1708, despite the opposition of Dr 

 Woodward, whose diluvian views as to the origin of fossils Lhwyd 



