274 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
XVIII. Obituary Notice of the late George Brook, F.LS., ERASE. 
By Wiuiam E. Hoy.e, M.A. (Oxon.), F.R.S.E. 
(Read 17th January 1894.) 
George Brook was born on March 17, 1857, of Yorkshire 
descent, and was a typical example of the sturdy independ- 
ence characteristic of that county. He was educated at the 
Friends’ School, Alderley Edge, and in 1873 entered as a 
science student at the Owens College. His love of natural 
history was innate, and when he left college it was not to 
discontinue his studies, but only to prosecute them with 
undiminished ardour. Though actively engaged in business 
in Huddersfield, he devoted his leisure hours to botanical 
and zoological researches, in conjunction with the late Mr J. 
W. Davis and other kindred spirits. Among the earliest of 
his investigations were those on the Collembola, some results 
of which are embodied in communications to the Linnean 
Society in 1882 and 1883; and it is interesting to note that 
his final act, as a zoologist, was the determination of one of 
these insects for his friend Professor Herdman. For some 
years he maintained, with conspicuous success, a marine 
aquarium at his inland home, some of the general results of 
which were given to the world in his “Notes from my 
Aquarium,” and in the first paper he read before this Society, 
“On the Aération of Marine Aquaria”; whilst his papers on 
the development of the Lesser Weever Fish, and of MJotella 
mustela, read before the Linnean Society in 1884, demon- 
strated the fact that his tanks were not the toys of an 
amateur, but instruments of scientific research. These 
investigations upon fishes led to his being invited in 1884 to 
come to Edinburgh as scientific assistant to the Scottish 
Fishery Board. During his connection with that body he 
accumulated stores of information as to the habits and life- 
history of various food-fishes, and used his opportunities to 
collect material for the continuation of his memoirs on the 
‘ embryology of teleostean fishes. The most important result 
of this work was the independent, though not the earliest, 
establishment of the origin of the endoderm from the 
