264 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



of apparatus and chemicals used in research, and by way of endowment 

 to graduates to enable them to carry on research work under the 

 guidance of the College staff. Next Session the Schunck Laboratory 

 will be available for such students to work in. 



Outside his own laboratory Dr. Schunck was chiefly interested in 

 the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was 

 elected a member on the same day as James Prescott Joule and Lyon 

 Play fair, January 25, 1842. For five years he served as Secretary, 

 and from 1862 he was elected either President or Vice-President of 

 the Society during a period of twenty years. Again, in 1889, he 

 resumed office and served continuously on the Council for eight years. 

 In 1896, under considerable pressure, he accepted the office of President 

 once more, in order to promote unity in the Society. This object 

 accomplished, he begged to be relieved from the burden of office in a 

 touching letter from which a few sentences may be quoted : 



"It is but seldom that, at my age, any man is able or can be 

 " expected to take an active interest in the affairs of an important 

 " Society, such as this. At my age many men can do little more than 

 " write a few almost unintelligible phrases in almost illegible lines. 

 " I can, thank Heaven, do a little more than that. Still the exertion 

 " of doing what I was wont to do becomes great, and the desire for 

 " quiet and repose constantly increases. 



" I have been a member of this Society for more than fifty years, 

 " and for the greater part of that time engaged in some official 

 " capacity, either as Secretary, Vice-President, or President. I think, 

 " therefore, the time has come for me to respectfully decline any office 

 " the Society may wish to confer on me 



" In one respect a change has taken place in the constitution of the 

 " Society which is still in progress. I mean the gradual effacement of 

 " what, without giving offence, may be called the dilettante element, 

 " of men who carried on science and literature, not as a profession, but 

 " as an intellectual diversion, and the substitution of men who 

 " cultivate science in a strictly professional spirit. This may be 

 " regretted I regret it but considering the great and ever-increasing 

 " specialisation of science, and the difficulties attending its cultivation, 

 " this tendency must be ever on the increase." 



Although Dr. Schunck retired from the Council in 1897, he still 

 kept up his interest in the Society, and one of his last acts was to 

 place in the room which had been Dalton's laboratory a marble tablet 

 commemorating the fact. In 1898 the Society bestowed on Dr. Schunck 

 the first " Dalton " medal, a medal which had been prepared in 1864, 

 but not previously bestowed. 



Dr. Schunck was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1850, 

 and again found himself with Joule in the same list of selected candi- 



