Febrltary 1 6, 1893] 



NATURE 



371 



ones are usually mere points. When seen with a lens, 

 or even at a distance from the eye suited to distinct vision 

 there does not appear to be any regular structure or 

 arrangement of the bright points. But if the surface is 

 so held as to be a little beyond the placeof distinct vision, 

 and at the same time, turned around in such a way as to 

 reflect always a strong light to the eye, either skylight or 

 lamplight, there appear lines of points across the polished 

 surface of the stone, which suggest very strongly the 

 Widmanstaetten figures on metallic meteorites. At times, 

 as the stone is turned, no lines can be detected. Again 

 one set of parallel lines or two sets crossing each other 

 become visible. Some of the sets are very sharply mani- 

 fested, and some are so faint as to leave one in doubt 

 whether the lines are real or only fancied. There are on 

 the surface in question six or eight of these sets of lines. 



A second surface was ground nearly parallel to the 

 first, at about one centimetre distant from it, and like 

 lines appeared on this parallel surface. Some of the 

 lines, but not all of them, corresponded in direction in 

 the two surfaces. Four more surfaces approximately at 

 right angles to the first surface, and corresponding to the 

 faces of a right prism, were then ground, and upon these 

 surfaces the like sets of lines appear with more or less 

 distinctness. 



A slab of a Pultusk stone 6x7 centimetres shows 

 over its entire surface like markings. Something like a 

 curvature of the lines appears in one instance, but in 

 general the lines run straight from side to side of the 

 slab. The slab is six millimeters in thickness, and most 

 of the sets of lines have the same directions upon the two 

 sides. 



A Hessle stone, a small slice from the Wold Cottage 

 stone, one from Sierra di Chaco, one from a Sienna 

 stone, a fragment from the Rockwood stone, and a slice 

 from the Rensselaer Co. stone, all show with more 

 or less clearness the like markings. Of three microscope 

 slides of the Fayette Co. meteorite one shows them 

 clearly, a second shows traces of them, the third not 

 at all.' 



A considerable number of the ground surfaces of 

 meteoric stones in the Peabody Museum also show these 

 markings. For example, a triangular surface of a Weston 

 stone, 8 or 10 centimetres to each side, exhibits them 

 very well. 



These markings are such as we might expect if the 

 forces which determine the crystallisation of the nickel- 

 iron of the iron meteorites also dominated the structure 

 of the rock-like formations of the stony meteorites and 

 the distribution therein of the iron particles. The rela- 

 tion of quartz crystals to the structure of graphic granite 

 is naturally suggested by these meteorite markings. 



H. A, Newton. 



THE LATE THOMAS DA VIES, F.G.S. 

 •jV/TR. THOMAS DAVIES, who died on December 21 

 ■'■'-'- last, was born on December 29, 1837, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of London, and was the son of Mr. William 

 Davies, F.G.S., of the Geological Department of the 

 British Museum. His early education was of a very 

 elementary character, and the period of his school-life 

 was brief : finding town-life irksome, and yearning for 

 freedom and adventure, he took to the sea at the age of 

 fourteen, and during the next four years led a roving life, 

 visiting China, India, and various parts of South America. 

 He was then prevailed upon by his father to adopt a 

 more settled mode of existence, and on the separation of 

 the Department of Mineralogy from that of Geology was 

 appointed in 1858 a third-class attendant at the British 

 Museum under Prof. Maskelyne, to whom the care of the 

 minerals had been assigned ; in the following year he 

 added to his responsibilities by marriage. 



During the next nine years, save for a short interval 

 NO. 1216, VOL. 47] 



when Dr. Viktor von Lang was an assistant in the 

 Department, Mr. Davies was the sole helper of Mr. 

 Maskelyne in the arrangement and examination of the 

 mineral collections ; during this time Mr. Maskelyne 

 effected a thorough change in the classification and 

 arrangement of the minerals, and in labelling with 

 localities the large number of specimens that were with- 

 out any descriptions except what could be traced out in 

 old catalogues. In this work, and in the cleaning and 

 arranging some tons of specimens, of which many were 

 entirely valueless, the patient and intelligent aid of 

 " young Davies " alone rendered it possible to carry out 

 the preliminary operations. As the collection grew into 

 orderly arrangement, the registration and labelling of 

 specimens was entrusted to him by Mr. Maskelyne. It 

 was thus that he gradually acquired an eye-knowledge of 

 minerals which has rarely, if ever, been surpassed. His 

 perception of the peculiarities of a specimen was re- 

 markably quick, while his remembrance of individual 

 specimens was almost marvellous. It was particularly in 

 the habit, the locality, the associations and modes of 

 occurrence of mineral species that he concentrated his 

 interest ; and to his knowledge in this direction his earlier 

 training, under the eye of Mr. Maskelyne, in the labelling 

 of the minerals, accumulated in the cases and drawers of 

 the collection, very largely contributed. 



In the early years of Mr. Davies's museum life Mr. 

 Maskelyne was further engaged in the study of thin 

 sections of meteorites, and initiated Mr. Davies into a 

 knowledge of the microscopic characters of rock-forming 

 minerals, a mode of investigation then almost unknown. 

 In this direction his quickness of perception and ex- 

 cellence of memory had full scope for play, and Mr. Davies 

 soon became extremely skilful in the microscopic deter- 

 mination of minerals in rock-sections> and in the recog- 

 nition of peculiarities of rock-structure. Few practical 

 petrologists approached him in this faculty. 



Nor did he neglect to improve bis general education. 

 With this end in view he attended the evening classes at 

 the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street, and 

 in the course of time acquired a knowledge of both French 

 and German. He was also familiar with plants and 

 fossils, a knowledge largely derived from his father. 



His remarkable qualifications attracted the early 

 attention of Mr. Maskelyne, and in 1862 were officially 

 recognised in his promotion by the trustees from the grade 

 of attendant to that of transcriber or junior assistant. In 

 1880 he was promoted to the grade of first-class assistant. 

 By a remarkable coincidence his father, Mr. William 

 Davies, who had long been renowned for his large 

 practical knowledge of important branches of palaeon- 

 tology, and especially of fossil fishes, and had likewise 

 begun museum life as an attendant, obtained the same 

 promotion on the same day. In the same year Mr. 

 Davies was awarded the balance of the proceeds of the 

 Wollaston Fund by the Council of the Geological Society 

 as a testimony of the value of his researches in mineralogy 

 and lithology. Still later, in 1889, the name oiDaviesitc 

 was given to a new mineral " in honour of Mr. Thomas* 

 Davies, who has now been associated during upwards of 

 thirty years with the British Museum Mineral Collection, 

 and whose mineralogical experience and Breithauptian eye 

 have ever been willingly placed at the service, not only of 

 his colleagues, but of every one who has been brought into 

 relationship with him." 



He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1870, 

 and was an early member of the Mineralogical Society 

 of France. 



His published work was not voluminous ; it relates 

 almost exclusively to the microscopic characters of the 

 pre-Cambrian rocks. He contributed, however, the bulk 

 of the articles on mineralogy and petrology for " Cassell's 

 Encyclopaedic Dictionary," and for some years edited the 

 Mineralogical Magazine. 



