IN MEMORIAM—GEORGE WALKER ORD. 319 
In Memoriam—Georce WALKER Opp. 
GrorceE WALKER OrpD, who died from peritonitis on 9th August, 
1899, after three days’ illness, was born in the parish of King- 
Edward, Aberdeenshire, in 1871, and was educated at Macduff 
Public School. 
Of a delicate constitution as a boy, and with health rendered 
precarious by the rigours of the north-east climate, the class-room 
had more attraction for him than the playground, and he soon 
became a bright and favourite pupil of the head-master, Mr. 
Renton. On leaving school, he was sent to work in the fields, 
almost the only form of labour to be obtained in that part of the 
country, but one ill-suited for a delicate youth, and there can be 
no doubt that it is to his early experience here that must be attri- 
buted the sympathy he had with the labouring classes, and the 
remedies proposed for the amelioration of their condition. 
Coming to Glasgow at the age of fifteen, he secured a post under 
the Corporation in the Kelvingrove Museum, and here his genius 
and temperament found congenial work, and his love for the study 
of natural history, which had already declared itself, became his 
abiding passion. The translation from the East Coast, with its 
consequent change of climate, brought about a remarkable and 
favourable change in his health, and within a year or so after his 
arrival in Glasgow he began his investigations into the flora and 
fauna of the West of Scotland, throwing into the work all the 
enthusiasm which characterises the youthful and ardent lover of 
nature. His abilities and rare aptitude for his professional duties 
were fully recognised by his superiors, and on the opening of the 
People’s Palace in Glasgow Green he was appointed Superin- 
tendent. He did much good work at this Institution, and mention 
may be made in this respect of the Glen Collection of Minerals, 
Rocks, and Fossils, which he overhauled and arranged with all the 
loving care and patience of the most devoted geologist, while he 
displayed no mean skill in settling anew the identity of specimens 
whose labels had been lost, or had become detached and been 
replaced on the wrong specimen. 
A 
