Original Members 9 



SIR PHILIP DE MALPAS GREY EGERTON, tenth baronet of that 

 line, was born at Oulton Park, Tarporley, Cheshire, on November 

 1 3th, 1806. From Eton he went to Christ Church, taking his degree 

 in 1828, and while at Oxford worked at Geology with Buckland and 

 Conybeare, and began to collect fossil fishes with his friend Viscount 

 Cole, afterwards Earl of Enniskillen. For that purpose they travelled 

 together in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. He was elected to 

 Parliament in 1830, and till his death represented, except for three 

 years, some constituency in Cheshire, for notwithstanding his 

 devotion to science he took an active interest in local and public 

 affairs. He became F.R.S. in 1831, and received the Wollaston 

 Medal of the Geological Society in 1873. He died after a short 

 illness on April 5th, 1881. 



DR. HUGH FALCONER, eminent for his botanical and still more 

 for his palaeontological work in India, was born at Forres on Feb. 

 29th, 1808, showed in early life much interest in languages as well 

 as in natural science, and took the M.A. degree at Aberdeen Uni- 

 versity in 1826. Then, after medical study at Edinburgh, he 

 became an M.D. in 1829, after which he went to Bengal as an assistant- 

 surgeon of the East India Company, and soon after reaching Calcutta 

 attracted notice by identifying some fossil bones from Ava. 

 Stationed next year at Meerut, he became acquainted with Dr. 

 Royle, of the Botanic Gardens, Saharanpur, whom he shortly after- 

 wards succeeded, and introduced the tea-shrub, with other valuable 

 plants, into that part of India. Becoming acquainted with P. T. 

 Cautley (page 7), he joined him in making a great collection of 

 fossils, largely vertebrate, from the Siwalik Hills. Falconer's 

 botanical investigations in 1838 took him across the mountains 

 into Balkistan and on to the glaciers at the head of the Shiggur 

 tributary of the Indus. In 1842 he came to England, bringing with 

 him great collections, botanical and palaeontological, which occupied 

 him till his return to India in 1847, when he was placed in charge 

 of the Botanical Gardens at Calcutta. In 1855 he retired to resume 

 his palaeontological work in England, and a few years later was 

 one of the first to realize the importance of the palaeolithic flint 

 implements discovered in the valley of the Somme. Falconer 

 wrote many valuable memoirs, but as he died July 3ist, 1865, he 

 did not live long enough to finish his great store of materials. But 

 what he accomplished sufficed to prove him a man of first-rate 

 ability, attractive disposition, and high character. 



MICHAEL FARADAY, a ' particular star ' among the physicists 

 of this country, was born in humble circumstances at Newington 

 Butts on September 22nd, 1791, and at the age of fourteen was 

 apprenticed to a bookbinder and stationer, with whom he remained 

 for eight years, and contrived to acquire so much knowledge of 

 science that a customer gave him tickets to four of Davy's lectures 



