NATURE 



[March 3, 192 1 



They had already learned to appreciate his powers 

 and capacity and to admire his manifold attain- 

 ments. He was a cultured, well-read man with , 

 many interests, literary and scientific, a somewhat 

 fastidious critic with a high standard of excel- 

 lence, but with sympathy and of sound judgment. 

 As a colleague he was all that a colleague should 

 be — unselfish, painstaking, hard-working, and 

 loyal, always ready to put his knowledge and his 

 experience at the service of his fellows. In the 

 college councils he was never argumentative or 

 captious — a man of few words, disposed more to 

 listen than to speak. When he did intervene in 

 a discussion what he said was weighty and strictly 

 to the point, and seldom failed to convince the 

 ^ majority of his colleagues. His sense of fairness, 

 his impartiality, and his freedom from prejudice 

 made him strive to see the other man's point of 

 view and to give it its due weight. This was so 

 obvious that it gave his judgments much of their 

 power and influence. One felt that when Miall 

 reached a conviction, and gave utterance to it in 

 his characteristic slow and deliberate tones, he was 

 probably right. 



The development of the Yorkshire College, as 

 compared with that of Owens College in its early 

 days, was comparatively rapid. The times were 

 of course different, and public appreciation of the 

 benefits of such institutions was far greater in 

 1874 than in the early 'fifties. Moreover, the 

 Leeds institution had never to strugi>;le against 

 the prejudices, religious and social, which at the 

 outset dogged the progress of John Owens 's 

 foundation. But this rapid development was not 

 unattended with its crises. There were times of 

 difficulty and of anxiety which the teaching staff 

 was called upon to share. It was on such occa- 

 sions that Miall 's strong common sense, sound 

 judgment, knowledge of affairs, and business 

 aptitudes were of special service, as, for example, 

 in the movement to house the college in more 

 appropriate and more dignified quarters than it 

 at first possessed ; in the discussions concerning 

 the plan and arrangements of the projected new 

 buildings ; and finally during the course of the 

 delicate negotiations which preceded the federa- 

 tion of the college with the Victoria University. 



As one who took his fair share in the various 

 stages of the development of the college during 

 the first eleven years of its existence, and recalls 

 its early struggles, and their outcome, with no 

 small measure of satisfaction, it affords me a 

 special gratification to bear testimony to the loyal 

 and devoted service of one of the truest friends 

 the University of Leeds ever possessed. 



T. E. Thorpe. 



The Editor invites me to write a few words 

 about tbe late Prof. L. C. Miall, a man whom I 

 seldom met, but when I did, always with interest 

 and pleasure. More than twentv years ago, 

 when we were editing White's " Selboi-ne " to- 

 gether, I w^ished to know more of him, and 

 invited him to Oxford for a Sunday. It was like 



NO. 2679, VOL. 107] 



him to have brought no evening dress, but we had 

 a fruitful time, and I found m the man a rare 

 simplicity of mind and manners, and a great 

 interest in his own experience, which he perhaps 

 imparted more freely to a classical man than to 

 one of his own circle. I heard the early history 

 of the chance given him through Prof. Rolleston : 

 how he asked a question after a lecture and was 

 invited to talk it over next day before Rolleston 

 left for Oxford, the result being that Rolleston 

 stayed all day to talk to him and thereafter never 

 forgot him. I heard the story of the little society 

 of scientific men formed to read Homer, and later 

 on he wrote me several letters about the best way 

 to teach a boy Latin : a job which in his 

 " emeritus " days he greatly enjoyed, doing it of 

 course in his own peculiar and independent way. 



Miall's enthusiasm in his own work was 

 unbounded, and to communicate it to others the 

 great delight of his life. He fairly astonished 

 me, after a visit here at Kingham, by sending me 

 as a gift the five splendid volumes on, insects of 

 Reaumur, and later on his own book on the early 

 naturalists, one as great a treasure as the other, 

 for his own beautiful English was as clear and 

 enjoyable as Reaumur's French. He did, in fact, 

 fit me out with a simple apparatus following the 

 course of his own studies, so intensely did he 

 wish his friend, only five years younger than him- 

 self, to share his enthusiasm. He once gave me a 

 whole morning's microscopic teaching in his labo- 

 ratory at Leeds, but though he fitted me out to 

 continue his course I had no time to do so. That 

 at my age he should have thought it possible 

 shows the simplicity of his mind. Miall was one 

 of those men who love teaching for its own sake, 

 and the charm of- his personality was such that I 

 spent the time gladly and gratefully. But it was 

 difficult, I found, to get him to bring his mind to 

 bear on something quite new and out of his own 

 experience. At Kingham I once took him to 

 see the work of some mice in a flooded meadow 

 which was new to me, but he had something else 

 which he was expounding to me at the moment, 

 and was not to be enticed. I shall always cherish 

 his memory as one of the straightest and simplest 

 Englishmen I ever knew. 



W. Warde Fowler. 



Prof. R. B. Clifton, F.R.S. 

 Prof. Robert Bellamy Clifton was born on 

 March 13, 1836, and so had nearly completed his 

 eighty-fifth year when he died on February 21. 

 The only son of a Lincolnshire gentleman, he 

 received his education at University College, 

 London, and at St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 coming out sixth wrangler in the Tripos of 1859 

 and second Smith's prizeman, the senior wrangler 

 and first Smith's prizeman being Canon Wilson. 

 His Cambridge record is typical of his subsequent 

 career; he was a man of great learning, but also 

 of great deliberation. Obtaining a fellowship at 

 St. John's, he went to Owens College, Man-' 



