carried on this task at intervals np to within a short period of his death, 

 labouring often to the verge of his physical strength. To his suggestion is 

 due the publication of the Quarterly Journal of Papers read at the Society's 

 Meetings, one of the most important undertakings of this Society. 



When Mr. Homer at last resigned the office of Inspector of Factories, 

 although now seventy-five years of age, he still remained so full of youthful 

 energy, that he looked forward hopefully to spend yet a few years in more 

 undivided attention to his favourite science. Unable longer for the toils of 

 out-of-door geology, he resumed with fresh zeal the arrangement of the 

 Geological Society's Museum, anxious that its stores of rock-specimens 

 should be classified in such a form as in the end to afford a comparative 

 series of the different rocks throughout the globe. The failing health of 

 his wife interrupted this task, and induced him to spend the winter of 

 1861-62 at Florence. There, as at Bonn, he found a ready welcome into 

 the cultivated and learned society of that city. While there, he occupied 

 himself with translating from the Italian Villari's * Life of Savonarola,' and 

 published it in England a few months afterwards. Mrs. Homer's health, 

 however, which had continued a source of anxiety to him, at last gave way, and 

 she died as the family was on the point of returning to England, When M r 

 Horner came back to London, his friends saw with concern that this great 

 sorrow had told only too plainly upon his health. His strength began to 

 fail, but his energy seemed as fresh as ever. He returned to his labours 

 among the collections of the Geological Society, and day after day he was 

 found poring over dusty specimens, describing and cataloguing them with 

 the same perseverance and even enthusiasm which he had shown from the 

 beginning. A few months after his return from Italy, viz. during the 

 summer of 1862, he paid his last visit to his native city. Never was his 

 welcome warmer. He came at the time when the schools were passing 

 through their public examination previous to dismissal for the autumn 

 holydays the High School where he himself had been educated, and the 

 Academy which, with Lord Cockburn, he had founded. He attended the 

 examinations, addressed the boys, presented some of the prizes, and showed 

 at the end of his long life the same deep interest in education and in the 

 pursuits of youth. His old Edinburgh friends, too now a yearly de- 

 creasing number vied with each other in their attention to the venerable 

 philanthropist. 



Returning from Scotland to London, he fixed upon the 1 5th of March, 

 1864, as the day when he should leave England to revisit the grave of 

 his wife at Florence. But before that day came round a cold seized 

 him, followed by extreme weakness, and he died calmly on the 5th of 

 March. 



Physical geology was the branch of science to which Mr. Horner more 

 specially devoted himself. The influence of his early acquaintance with 

 Playfair and the Huttonian geologists at Edinburgh is visible throughout 

 his scientific course. He began the study imbued with the prevailing 



