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PHILLIPS, RICIIAUD, F.H.3. 



PHILLIPS, SAMUEL, LL.D. 



. 



ment of asaistant-sccretary, subsequently termed assistant-general 

 reretary, which he continues to hold. In thia position, giving most 

 effective kid to the eminent men of science who have succ. 

 filled the office of general secretaries, ho has conducted the details 

 of the correspondence of the association, and arranged and edited 

 the twenty five volumes of 'Reports,' "including the Proceeding*, 

 Recommendations, and Transaction*," which it has issued a work 

 which could only have been carried on by one who was at once a 

 Bcalous cultivator of science himself, and an equally zealous and 

 sincere friend of all its cultivators. The preparations for the successive 

 annual meeting! have of course also devolved upon Mr. Phillips, in 

 co-operation with the local officers, together with much of the actual 

 business, official and general, as well as scientific, of the meetings 

 themselves. The lectures on special subjects adapted to general 

 audiences, and the oral expositions of the most important researches 

 previously brought before the sections, to which the evening meetings 

 have usually been devoted, have constituted a marked feature of the 

 association. In these Mr. Phillips has taken a prominent part from the 

 first, and it has been remarked that his contributions of this kind to the 

 more popular yet strictly relevant labours of the association resemble 

 in their character those happy illustrations of special truths, or their 

 application, which Professor Faraday has given for BO many years at 

 the "Friday evening meetings" of the Royal Institution, and occa- 

 sionally at the meetings of the British. Association itself. 



In voL iv. of the ' Uibliographia Zoologue et Geologim ' of Agassiz, 

 edited by the late Mr. Strickland and Sir W. Jardine, published at 

 the end of the year 1854, thirty -ouu works, papers, or collections of 

 articles by Professor Phillips, ore described, relating to geology in 

 general, to many distinct portions or subjects of the science, and also 

 to various subjects of palaeontology. This list however is incomplete. 

 Among the works enumerated arc a ' Treatise on Geology,' forming 

 two volumes of the 'Cabinet Cyclopaedia,' first published in 1837 

 and 1839, and reprinted with corrections in 1852 ; also articles ou the 

 science in the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,' and in the seventh 

 edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica.' Many articles in the 'Penny 

 Cyclopaedia ' are likewise from his pen, including ' Geology,' ' Organic 

 Remains,' ' Silurian Strata,' &c. Ilia ' Illustrations of the Geology of 

 Yorkshire,' in addition to the details of the physical features and 

 structure of that county, contain systematic and accurate descriptions 

 of the organic remains characterising the strata described, many of 

 them new, and ethers newly figured. Professor Phillips has also 

 figured and described, in a separate work published in 1841, the 

 ' Palicozoic Fossils of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, observed 

 in the Ordnance Geological Survey [now the 'Geological Survey of the 

 United Kingdom '] of that District.' He is also author of a memoir 

 of his uncle, William Smith, published in 1844 ; and of on interesting 

 work of local natural and archaeological history, entitled ' The Rivers, 

 Huuutains, and Sea-Const of Yorkshire,' 1853. His Geological Map of 

 the British Isles (issued by the Society for the Promotion of Christian 

 Knowledge) appeared in 1842, and the Geological Map of Yorkshire 

 in 1853. 



After Dr. Buckland had been withdrawn by mental disease from 

 the duties of the chair of geology at Oxford, the late Mr. Strickland 

 was appointed deputy reader in, or professor of, that science in the 

 university; and upon bin lamented death in 1S53 Mr. Phillips suc- 

 ceeded to that office, having also the degree of M.A. conferred upon 

 him. Since the recent demise of Dr. Buckland, Mr. Phillips has been 

 appointed reader in geology iu the University of Oxford. 



1-11 1LI.I PS, R1CI1ARD, F.RS^some time President of the Chemical 

 Society of London, first Curator aud Chemist of the Museum of 

 Practical Geology, an eminent mineralogtcal and pharmaceutical 

 chemUt, was younger brother of William Phillips the mineralogist, 

 the subject of a succeeding article, aud was born in the year 1778. 

 lie was educated a a chemist and druggist, under WILLIAM ALLEN, 

 at the well-known pharmaceutical establishment, Plough-court, 

 Lombard street, London ; but he received bis first instructions in 

 chemistry from Dr. George Fordyoe. The two brothers, together with 

 William Allen, Luke Howard, and several other members of the 

 Society of Friends, and three young men who were not Quakers, were 

 among the founders, eight in number, of the Askesian Society, already 

 noticed in a preceding article on Mr. Pepys, who was one of those 

 three. To Richard Phillip*, says Dr. Daubeny, in his anniversary 

 addren as president of the Chemical Society in 1852, "we are indebted 

 for the first correct analyses of the Bath waters, in the course of which 

 investigation he discovered the cause of the apparent uncertainty in 

 the indications afforded by the common teats for iron, caused by the 

 variations that occur in their effects, according as carbonate of lime is 

 present or not." The elaborate paper stating the process and results 

 of these analyses, was first communicated to the Askesian Society, and 

 published in the ' Philosophical Magazine.' 



His labours in mineralogical chemistry were characterised by great 

 neatncM and precision, 10 that they may indeed bo appealed to at the 

 present time aa models of skilful and exact research. The analyses 

 of the llath waters were succeeded by examinations of other celebrated 

 mineral springs, and of several rare minerals. In 1823 he discovered 

 that the mineral called urauite was not the hydratod oxide of uranium, 

 as it had been previously supposed to be, but a hydrated double 

 pho phate of that metal and copper. The presence of phosphoric acid 



in urauite had escaped the scrutiny of Berzelius. who was thus aa 

 much outdone in this particular respect by the subject of this notice, 

 as Dvy had beeu by him when he detected the presence of the same 

 acid in wavellite, which the great English chemist had overlooked. 



The late 1'r. Thomas Thomson, Regius Professor of Chemistry in 

 the University of Glasgow, the author of the celebrated 'Syhteui ' of 

 the science, iu his ' History of Chemistry,' forming part of the National 

 Library,' published in 1S31, when reviewing the progress of analytical 

 chemistry in Great Britain, bore the following honourable testimony 

 to the merits of Mr. R. Phillips a testimony involving also conside- 

 rations relative to the social position of the cultivators of science in 

 this country, which thinking men of all ranks perceive to be of daily 

 augmenting importance to the community: "Of modern British 

 analytical chemists," says Dr. Thomson, " undoubtedly the first is 

 Mr. Richard Phillips, to whom we are indebted for not a few analyses, 

 conducted with great chemical skill, aud performed with great 

 accuracy. Unfortunately of late years he has done little, having been 

 withdrawn from science by the necessity of providing for a large 

 family, which con hardly be done in this country except by turning 

 one's attention to trade or manufactures." 



It was however in the pharmaceutical branch of practical chemistry 

 that Mr. R. PMllips's services were most conspicuous, as might be 

 expected from one of his peculiar acuteness of mind, after a training 

 in tbo establishment in Plough-court, of which the chemical reputation 

 ranked justly so high. Indeed, the perfect familiarity he possessed 

 with the processes in use, enabled him to detect the errors into which. 

 the fromers of the London Pharmacopoeia had fallen ; whilst the 

 keenness of his reviews gave currency to his censures, of which even 

 those who smarted under their severity, could scarcely help acknow- 

 ledging the justice. Accordingly, at a subsequent period he was 

 especially consulted on the drawing up of two of the editions of tho 

 London Pharmacopoeia by the College of Physicians itself, whoso 

 previous labours in that department ho had so severely criticised, and 

 thus led the way to many of the much needed corrections in the 

 processes siuco introduced. Indeed, during the latter part of his life, 

 he was appealed to as perhaps the highest living authority in this 

 branch of chemistry ; and his translation of the London Pharmacopoeia, 

 the last edition of which he was engaged at the time of his death i.i 

 superintending, was looked upon as the best book of reference ou all 

 chemical questions involved iu the preparation of medicines. 



From the year 1S21 Mr. R. Phillips conducted tho 'Annals of 

 Philosophy,' with the assistance of Mr. E, W. Brayloy, jun. (now 

 F.R.S., and librarian to the London Institution), and when that 

 periodical was incorporated with the 'Philosophical Magazine' in 

 1827, his services were secured as one of its editors, a po>t In 

 till his death. The principal articles on subjects of chemistry and 

 mineralogy in the ' Penny Cyclopaedia,' were contributed by him. 



Mr. Phillips was successively lecturer on chemistry at the London 

 Hospital, at the Government Military College at Sandhurst, at Mr. 

 Graitigcr's School of Medicine in Southwark, aud at St. Thomas'* 

 Hospital. In 1839 Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) De la Heche, knowing 

 that in the first instance chemical investigations of mineral products 

 would bo those chiefly appreciated by the government and the public, 

 wisely selected him for the appointment of curator and chemist of 

 the Museum of Economic Geology, now the Museum of Practical 

 Geology in Jorinyn-btreet, an office which he continued to hold till the 

 date of its formal opening under the auspices of J U5.ll. Prince Albert, 

 in July 1851, ou the very day before which he breathed his last, in 

 his seventy-third year, after a very short illness, having been absent 

 from tho museum for three or four days only. 



On the institution of the Chemical Society of London, in the year 

 1811, its founders had offered Mr. R. Phillips the honourable position 

 of the first president, deeming it due alike to his seniority among 

 English chemists and his distinguished reputation ; and although he 

 declined the office then, he became the president in 1849 and 1850. 

 He had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society iu 1822. 



" He might indeed be regarded," remarks Dr. Daubeny, " during 

 the latter part of his life, as a connecting link between the chemists 

 of the last generation and of the present, having been the contemporary 

 of Davy and Wollaston no less than of Faraday and Graham ; and in 

 his death we have lost one of the lost of that distinguished band of 

 philosophers, who, before chemical science had so enlarged its 

 boundaries, as to include within its domain and to comprehend within 

 the operation of its laws the products of animal aud of vegetable life, 

 occupied themselves almost exclusively in tho investigation of the 

 combinations of which mineral bodies ore susceptible." 



PHILLIPS, SAMUEL, LL.D., was born in 1815. His father, who was 

 of the Jewish faith, and a tradesman iu Regent-street, London, struck 

 by the boy's liveliness of manner aud skill in mimicry, conceived that ha 

 would make a successful actor. He accordingly trained him for the 

 stage, and iu June 1829, "Master Phillips, a young gentleman only 

 fourteen yean of age," was announced to appear at the Haymarket 

 Theatre in the character of Richard III. Fortunately some powerful 

 friend.) the late Duke of Sussex being one thought that the boy's 

 cleverness deserved a better culture than it would find in such a 

 school, and they induced his father to scud him, in 1S32, to the 

 Londou University, whence he proceeded iu tho following year to 

 the University of Ubttingen. Having changed his religious views, he 



