1893- OBITUARY. 399 



of economic interest, have been discussed during the past session. In the early part 

 of this year a circular was addressed to the members and the coal-owners and 

 lessees of Lancashire and Cheshire, asking for their assistance and co-operation in 

 the work which the Society is hoping to accomplish, of giving a fairly accurate 

 enumeration and description of the fossils of the coal-bearing rocks of this district. 

 Instructions were given to carefully note the exact horizon and locality from which 

 each fossil was derived, so that an attempt might be possible to correlate the various 

 coal seams in different parts of the county, thereby rendering valuable aid to future 

 explorations for coal. The result of this appeal has not, as yet, been such as the 

 Council had reason to expect, but it is hoped that the object has not been lost sight 

 of, and that considerable additions to our knowledge of the fossil fauna and flora of 

 the Coal-measures will yet be forthcoming from the hands of the members and 

 others interested in the work. Several members have already responded by sending 

 specimens, whose assistance will be acknowledged and their contributions incorpo- 

 rated in the next list of Fossil Plants, etc., which is being prepared by Mr. Robert 

 Kidston, F.G.S., for publication in the Society's Transactions. 



OBITUARY. 



H. W. CROSSKEY, LL.D., F.G.S. 

 Born 1826. Died October i, 1893. 



BY the death of Dr. Crosskey, Geology loses one of the most pains- 

 taking students of Glacial and post-Glacial deposits ; while to 

 the general public he was well-known as a leading Unitarian minister, 

 and as one devoted to the educational advancement of the poorer 

 classes. He was born at Lewes, and undertook his first pastorate 

 at Derby. Thence he removed in 1852 to Glasgow, and in 1869 to 

 Birmingham. While in Scotland he paid much attention to the post- 

 Tertiary deposits of the Clyde Valley, and about the year 1855 he 

 became associated with David Robertson, " The Naturalist of 

 Cumbrae," and their joint labours on those fossiUferous deposits were 

 pubHshed by the Geological Society of Glasgow. Later on they were 

 joined by Dr. G. S. Brady in a special study of the post-Tertiary 

 Entomostraca (or Ostracoda), and this resulted in a Monograph on 

 the subject, which was published by the Palaeontographical Society 

 in 1874. ^^- Crosskey was the author of a series of Reports on the 

 Erratic Blocks of this country, which were communicated during the 

 past twenty years to the British Association. 



''PHE death is also announced of Mr. Thomas Bain, the South 

 1 African Geologist, who for a long period continued the work 

 of his father, the late Mr. Andrew Geddes Bain, in discovering so 

 many of the fossil reptiles of the Triassic Karoo Formation now in 

 the British Museum. 



