319 



OBITUARY NOTICES 



OF 



FELLOWS DECEASED. 



(PART iv.) 



THE MAEQUESS OF SALISBUKY, E.G. 18301903. 



EGBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE-CECIL, the third Marquess of 

 Salisbury, was born on February 3, 1830. He succeeded to the title 

 in 1868, and died on August 22, 1903. 



Lord Salisbury was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1869 ; 

 he served on the Council in 1869-1870, again in 1882-1883, and for a 

 third time in 1892-1894; he was a Vice- President in 1882-1883 and 

 in 1893-1894. By his death the Eoyal Society has lost a Fellow who 

 combined genuine scientific instinct and interests with a unique position 

 as a statesman whose advice and co-operation have therefore on 

 many occasions been of the greatest value. 



Lord Salisbury was generally known to take great interest in 

 physical science, and he spent much of his spare time in experiments. 

 He experienced some of the vicissitudes incident to chemical experi- 

 menters, having once been nearly suffocated by inhaling chlorine, on 

 another occasion having had a bad explosion with sodium. His fondness 

 for botany placed him, on one excursion, in a novel situation ; while 

 searching for plants on a neighbouring estate, the keeper mistook him 

 for a poacher. Although he published very little, he took careful 

 notes of his work. These records have not been found, with the 

 exception of three small note-books, containing disjointed entries from 

 which only an imperfect idea of the work can be obtained. Though he 

 often talked in private about scientific subjects, his well-known dislike 

 of egotism prevented him from referring to his own performances. 



He seems to have been much attracted by photography at an early 

 period. In 1864 he wrote an article on that subject for the "Quarterly 

 Eeview," which was published in the October number, pp. 482-519. 



A 



