Biographical Notes 67 



created a knight. A hard worker, but a good talker and most pleasant 

 companion, his mind remained clear to the end, though bodily 

 infirmities, especially deafness, increased, till he died at Haslemere 

 on Jan. ijth, 191 1. 1 



DR. ALBERT CHARLES LEWIS GOTTHILF GUNTHER was born on 

 Oct. 3rd, 1830, at Mohringen in \Viirtemberg and educated at 

 Tubingen and Bonn, afterwards qualifying as a physician in London 

 and taking the degree of M.D. at Tubingen in 1862. He devoted 

 himself to the study of zoology, especially fishes, and was engaged 

 at the British Museum from 1855, becoming Keeper of Zoology 

 twenty years later, from which post he retired in 1895. While 

 thus engaged he prepared ten volumes of the Catalogue of Colubrine 

 Snakes, Bairachia, and Fishes, and contributed important memoirs 

 on the last to the series of Challenger Reports. He became F.R.S. 

 in 1867, and received a Royal Medal in 1878, with other well-earned 

 honours, dying at Kew on Feb. ist, 1914. 



PROFESSOR HENRY JOHN STEPHEN SMITH wa^ the son of an Irish 

 barrister, born in Dublin on November 2nd, 1826, but brought up 

 in England. He won a scholarship at Balliol, Oxford, in 1844, 

 but spent the greater part of the next two years in study on the 

 Continent, returning to Oxford for the Easter Term of 1847 to win 

 the Ireland Scholarship, a double first, and a Balliol Fellowship, 

 which was afterwards exchanged for one at Corpus. First rate as 

 a classic, he took an even higher place as a mathematician, and 

 was elected in 1860 to the Savilian Professorship of Geometry 

 and in 1861 a Fellow of the Royal Society. Active also in University 

 business, he was appointed Keeper of the Museum, but in 1881 his 

 health began to fail the sword was wearing through the scabbard 

 and he died on Feb. 9th, 1883. Huxley describes him as " One of 

 the ablest men I ever met," which I venture to repeat with the 

 addition, " and one of the most attractive." As a mathematician 

 Gauss had hardly any abler disciple, and his contributions to the 

 Theory of Numbers were specially valuable. 



1874. At the Anniversary Meeting on April 2/th, General 

 Strachey became Treasurer in place of Professor Flower, 

 and Dr. Debus was elected to fill the vacancy caused by the 

 resignation of General Sir E. Sabine. 



Of DR. HEINRICH DEBUS, who lived and died in 1916 at Cassel, 

 Germany, after his career in England, ending as Professor of 

 Chemistry at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, it may suffice 



1 The Minute books of the Philosophical Club show signs, in the correction 

 of errors in dates and numbers, of his careful revision while he held the 

 office of Treasurer. A subject index at the end of the first volume (which 

 has been very helpful to myself) was made by him. 



