8 2 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



DR. WILLIAM THOMAS BLANFORD, distinguished in geology and 

 zoology, was the son of a carver and gilder, born in London on 

 October yth, 1832. After receiving part of his education on the 

 Continent, he passed with distinction through the Royal School 

 of Mines, and obtained in 1854 an appointment on the Geological 

 Survey of India, working at first on the Talchir Coalfield, where 

 he detected a boulder bed of glacial origin. The outbreak of the 

 Indian Mutiny seriously endangered his life, but, when it had been 

 quelled, he resumed his surveying work, and after two years in 

 Burma investigated the Deccan Traps. In 1868 he was attached 

 to the Abyssinian expedition, which captured Magdala, the result 

 being large collections and an admirable book, The Geology and 

 Zoology of Abyssinia. In 1872 he was attached to the Persian 

 Boundary Commission, and, after an arduous journey to England 

 by the Caspian Sea and Moscow, spent two years at home working 

 out his collection, the results of which were published. After 

 returning to India he took up the survey of Sind, and then, while 

 at the central office in Calcutta, combined with Medlicott in writing 

 the Manual of the Geology of India. After another furlough in 

 England, he retired from the Survey in 1882, when he settled in 

 London. Elected F.R.S. in 1874, he received a Royal Medal in 

 1901, and the Wollaston Medal in 1883 from the Geological Society, 

 of which he was President from 1888 to 1890. During a visit to 

 Canada in 1884 he received from Montreal the degree of LL.D., 

 and was created C.I.E. in 1904. He devoted much time to editing 

 the Fauna of British India, to which he contributed the volume 

 on Mammals and two on Birds. In science he combined depth 

 of knowledge with width of view, and, as it was rightly said, " was 

 in word and deed a true gentleman." He died at his house on 

 Campden Hill on June 23rd, 1905. 



1887. At the Anniversary Meeting on April 28th, Mr. John 

 Ball was elected Treasurer instead of Professor Bonney, and 

 the vacancy made by transferring Mr. Simon to the honorary 

 supernumerary list was filled by the election of Professor 

 Clifton. 



As PROFESSOR ROBERT BELLAMY CLIFTON is happily still living, 

 it may be enough to say that he was born in 1836, was sixth wrangler, 

 second Smith's prizeman, and a Fellow of St. John's College, Cam- 

 bridge, was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Owens College, 

 Manchester, from 1860 to 1865, when he became Professor of 

 Experimental Philosophy at Oxford, holding that office till 1915, 

 and devoting most of his time to organizing a laboratory and founding 

 a school of Physics in that University. He was elected F.R.S. 

 in 1868. 



