284 Geology. 



the Coal Measures of Nova Scotia in 1863, North American Devonian 

 Plants in 1865, and some Canadian Cambro-Silurian Sponges in 1890. 



Day (FRANK) 



Obtained skull of Toxodon platensis from the Pampa of Buenos Ayres, 

 purchased 1878. 



Deane (JAMES) 



Triassic footprints from Turner's Falls, Massachusetts, U.S.A., pur- 

 chased 1844. 



Debey (JULIEN) 



Presented Miocene Mollusca from Java, 1891. 

 Dennant (J.) 



Presented Tertiary Mollusca from Muddy Creek, Victoria, 1886. 



Deshayes (GEKARD PAUL) [1797-1875] 



This eminent French naturalist resigned his medical practice, and, in 

 the words of Lyell, "sacrificed his existence to make himself, for the 

 benefit of science, the first fossil conchologist in Europe." He spent much 

 of his time collecting fossils, especially from the Tertiary rocks of Europe, 

 to assist those conchological and stratigraphical studies that brought him, 

 through Sir Charles Lyell, into cordial relations with English naturalists. 

 He wrote a "Catalogue of the Conchifera, or Bivalve Shells, in the 

 Collection of the British Museum," 1853-1854 ; and during those years 

 the Trustees purchased from him collections, chiefly of Mollusca, from the 

 Eocene and Miocene of the Paris Basin and Bordeaux. The rapid 

 progress subsequently made in the classification of those rocks soon 

 rendered these series, with their insufficiently detailed labels, of less value 

 than was expected. Deshayes' main collection is in the Ecole des Mines, 

 Paris. 



Bewick (EDWAKD S.) 



Presented Pleistocene non-marine Mollusca from the Barnwell Gravels, 

 Cambridge, 1889. 



Dixon (FREDERIC) [1799-1849] 



While practising as a physician at Worthing, Dixon made from the 

 rocks of the neighbourhood a collection of fossils, which he worked out 

 with peculiar skill. This was the basis of a work on "The Geology and 

 Fossils of the Tertiary and Cretaceous formations of Sussex " in which he 

 had the co-operation of the leading specialists in palaeontology, and for 

 the better illustration of which he borrowed specimens from other 

 collectors, such as J. S. Bowerbank, F. E. Edwards, G. A. Coombe, Mrs. 

 Smith of Tunbridge Wells, W. D. Saull, N. Wetherell, and others 

 mentioned on p. 55 of his work. Specimens already in the British 

 Museum were also figured therein. The volume should have been 

 published in 1850, the date on the title-page, but its author died when it 

 was only two-thirds printed. Finally, under the editorship of K. Owen, 

 it was completed and published in 1852 (vide Woodward and Sherbom, 

 "Brit. Foss. Vert.," p. 17). Dixon's collection, which was purchased 

 from his executors in 1850, contained over 4000 fossils from the Tertiary 

 beds of Bracklesham and Bognor and from the Chalk, besides other 

 miscellaneous specimens. The figured specimens of Tertiary molluscs 

 have been noted by Mr. E. B. Newton in his " Systematic List of the 

 Edwards Collection " ; the figured specimens from the Chalk bear the 



