8 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



early showed signs of exceptional ability. He went to Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, was second wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos 

 of 1805, and bracketed for the Smith's Prizes with Thomas Turton, 

 afterwards Bishop of Ely. Appointed a Mathematical Lecturer at 

 Woolwich in 1806, he introduced competitive examinations, and, 

 after becoming Professor in 1838, ' transformed the Academy ' 

 before resigning office in 1854. He undertook and published impor- 

 tant investigations into the effect of temperature on magnetic 

 forces, on cases of magneto-electric conductivity, and on the direct 

 influence of solar rays on the magnetic needle. A report, made by 

 himself and the Astronomer Royal (G. B. Airy) on Magnetic Observa- 

 tories, led the Government to establish several such in the British 

 Islands. Professor Christie died at Twickenham on Jan. 24th, 1865. 



SIR HENRY THOMAS DE LA BECHE, not the least eminent of that 

 group of geologists who, in the earlier half of the nineteenth century, 

 were the ' makers ' of that science in England, was born in a suburb 

 of London in 1796. The last of an ancient family, he lost his father 

 early, and passed his boyhood at Ottery St. Mary and Lyme Regis, 

 where the fossils attracted him to geology. Later on, he went 

 from a military school into the army, but gave up that profession 

 after the peace of 1815, and found employment in the Geology of 

 Dorset. After 1817 he spent four or five years chiefly in Switzerland 

 and France, studying the Alps and increasing his knowledge of 

 minerals and rocks. In 1819 he published his first paper, On the 

 Temperature and Depth of the Lake of Geneva, which was quickly 

 followed by one on The Secondary Formations of the Southern Coast 

 of England. In 1824 he visited Jamaica, where he had inherited 

 an estate, and, as a result, gave the first description of its rocks. 

 Realizing the great importance of laying down the results of a 

 systematic survey of British geology on the new Ordnance Map 

 (on the scale of an inch to a mile), he did this, at his own expense, for 

 the mining districts of Devon and Cornwall, and the Report on The 

 Geology of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, published in 1839, 

 is a lasting monument to his powers as a geologist. His map, how- 

 ever, had so strongly impressed the Government that they decided 

 to carry on the work, granted a sum of money and a house in Craig's 

 Court, and appointed De la Beche, in 1835, director of the Ordnance 

 Geological Survey. A larger space for specimens and staff was 

 soon wanted, and the present building in Jermyn Street was opened 

 by Prince Albert in 1851, which enabled De la Beche to carry out 

 his idea of establishing a School of Mines. Elected F.R.S. in 1819, 

 he became President of the Geological Society in 1847, received its 

 Wollaston Medal in 1855, was made a knight in 1848, and died, 

 after three years of declining health, on April I3th, 1855. His 

 Researches in Theoretical Geology, published in 1834, and his Geological 

 Observer, in 1853, are among the classics of the science. 



