187 



conjointly with Professor H. A. Nicholson, and appeared in the 

 Journal of the Geological Society in 1877. But he wrote one 

 other paper on a New Form of Quartz, which was read before the 

 Mineralogical Society early in the year following. 



At this time he had finally decided upon giving up his appoint- 

 ment at Cork, and retiring to Penrith to spend his last days with his 

 sister, in the midst of his many friends, and surrounded on all sides 

 by geological features wherewith his name must for ever be associ- 

 ated. With this object in view, he had gone for the last time to Cork, 

 to make the necessary arrangements, and to take a final leave of 

 his students and his colleagues. But he was fated to see Penrith 

 no more. The arduous nature of the duties he had of late years 

 been called upon to perform after thirty years or more largely spent 

 in mountain -climbing of a most exhausting nature, had proved too 

 great a strain for his constitution. At Dublin, on the evening of 

 the 4th of October, 1878, at the very commencement of the rest he 

 had looked forward to for so long, Robert Harkness suddenly fell 

 dead of heart disease. 



I need not enter into the particulars of the sequel. We all 

 know that his remains were brought over to England, and subse- 

 quently laid to rest in the beautiful cemetery at Penrith. We all 

 know how his colleagues at Cork took steps to convey to future 

 generations the sentiments they felt towards him, by erecting the 

 memorial window that now decorates the Hall of Queen's College, 

 Cork. Nor need I do more than refer to the transfer of his fine 

 private collection of fossils, so rich in illustrations of the past life 

 of Cumberland and Westmorland, to the Central Museum of the 

 district whose geological structure he did so much to elucidate. 



Of his relations with the world outside his own family circle, it 

 would be impertinent for me to express any opinion, when a writer* 

 that both knew him better personally, and was better acquainted 

 with his work than I can claim to be, writes of him as follows : — 



"It is now some five-and-thirty years since the name of this able 

 geologist first appeared as a writer on his favourite science. During 



* Professor A. Geikie, F.R.S., Director General of the Geological Survey, 

 "Nature," Oct. 1878, lo, p. 628. 



