270 



NATURE 



{;jan. 17, I i 



CHARLES IV ATKINS MERRIFIELD, F.R.S. 



MR. CHARLES WATKINS MERRIFIELD.F.R.S., 

 who died at Hove on the ist inst., at the coin- 

 pai-atively early age of fifty-six, was a native of Brighton. 

 Having entered for the Bar, he in 1847 received from the 

 then Marquis of Lansdovvne an appointment in the Edu- 

 cation Department of the Privy Council Office. Though 

 called to the Bar in due course, he never practised, but 

 was speedily promoted to the office of an Examiner, the 

 duties of which he discharged with marked attention and 

 success, while finding time for other work which made 

 for him a name among men of science. Though well 

 versed in Greek and Latin, as well as in the classic 

 authors in French and Italian, both of which languages 

 he wrote well and spoke fluently, the bent of his mind 

 was decidedly towards the more exact sciences. He was 

 an early member of the Royal Institute of Naval Archi- 

 tects, of which he was for many years Honorary Secre- 

 tary, receiving a handsome testimonial on his retirement 

 in 1875. Some mathematical papers he had contributed 

 to the Transactions of some of the learned societies, and 

 especially some memoirs on the calculation of elliptic 

 integrals in the Philosophical Transactions, led to his 

 election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1863. In 

 1867 the Government established the Royal School of 

 Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at South 

 Kensington, and Mr. C. W. Merrifield, at the request of 

 the authorities, accepted the office of Vice-Principal. He 

 only intended to take this as a temporary measure, but as 

 the result of the lamented death of Mr. Purkiss, who was 

 to have been Principal, Mr. Merrifield was appointed to 

 that office. On the transfer of the Institution to Green- 

 wich in 1873, he resumed his office of Examiner in the 

 Education Department. Mr. Merrifield was a frequent 

 attendant at the annual meetings of the British Associa- 

 tion, and filled the office of Vice-President of its Section 

 of Mechanical Science at the Brighton meeting in 1875, 

 and was President of the same Section at the Glasgow 

 meeting in the following year. He served on many im- 

 portant committees of that Association ; one of these 

 was the committee whose report on the stability, propul- 

 sion, and seagoing qualities of ships in 1869 was drawn 

 up by him, and another was the committee for reporting 

 on Babbage's celebrated analytical machine. Mr. Merri- 

 field was a member, and in due course became President, 

 of the London Mathematical Society, and he held the 

 office of Treasurer until he was compelled by his health 

 to resign it in 1882. To some of the leading scientific 

 journals and periodical publications his contributions, 

 extending from 1853, have been very numerous ; they 

 may be found in the publications of the Royal Society, 

 the Philosophical Ulcii^a^inc, the Assurance Magazine, 

 the Messenger of Mathematics, &c. His acquaintance 

 with mathematical arithmetic, methods of interpolation, 

 and tabular work in general, was very wide and complete. 

 Mr. Merrifield edited many of the works in the Text- 

 books of Science published by Messrs. Longman, and 

 himself wrote a successful treatise on arithmetic and 

 mensuration as one of that series. Some of his papers 

 on the difficult and scientifically interesting subject of sea 

 waves were translated into Italian for the Rii'ista 

 Marittima, in which they appear, and a footnote to 

 one of them, after bearing testimony to the author's 

 extensive knowledge and excellence of style, expresses the 

 satisfaction of the editor at his adding to these qualifi- 

 cations that of "writing correctly our language." He 

 was closely connected with the Association for the Im- 

 provement of Geometrical Teaching from its foundation, 

 and took an active and leading part in the work of the 

 Association. Mr. Merrifield served on several important 

 Royal Commissions, including one on the seaworthiness 

 of ships, of which the Duke of Edinburgh was President. 

 During the last few vcars he frequently sat as scientific 

 assessor to Mr. Rothery in the Wreck Court. A part of 



his unofficial work consisted of the conduct for many 

 years of the mathematical part of the May examinations 

 of the Science and Art Department. All his arrange- 

 ments for this purpose were completed in 1882, when, 

 in April of that year, he was prostrated by an attack of 

 apoplexy. He had so far recovered as to give hopes that 

 his hfe might be spared for some years, but on October 18 

 last he was seized with a third attack, from which he 

 never rallied. 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF PRUSSIA 



"T^HE Report of this important Survey for 1882 has just 

 ■*■ been issued as a well-printed octavo volume with 

 maps, sections, and plates of fossils. The first division is 

 devoted to an account of the operations of the Survey in 

 the field. These were conducted in the Harz, where the 

 keen-eyed Lossen still wields his powerful hammer among 

 the eruptive rocks of that classic region ; where, also. Dr. 

 von Groddeckand Herren Halfar, Dames, Branco, and von 

 Koenen bore a share ; in northern and eastern Thuringia 

 and the Thuringerwald, where ten geologists were engaged ; 

 in Hesse-Nassau, with a force of five surveyors; in the 

 southern part of the Rhine province, where Herr Grebe 

 was at work; in Silesia, where the Survey was commenced 

 by Dr. Dathe ; in the Berlin district, where the superficial 

 deposits and agricultural features were mapped, and the 

 special geological and agricultural map of that district, 

 consisting of thirty-six sheets, was completely surveyed ; 

 in the low grounds about Stendal and Gardelegen, in the 

 plain of the Lower Elbe, and further east in West and 

 East Prussia ; and lastly among the diluvial and alluvial 

 formations to the north-west of Halle. 



In the course of the year eighteen sheets of maps and 

 sections were published, including fourteen of the geologi- 

 cal-agricultural survey of the Berlin district and four 

 sheets of the map of older formations. The total number 

 of sheets now published amounts to 109. There were 

 likewise issued in 18S2, besides the Annual Report, three 

 parts of the Transactions of the Survey : viz. an account 

 of the Coal-basin of Lower Silesia and Bohemia, by 

 A. Schiitze ; descriptions of the Regular Echinids of the 

 North German Chalk, by C. Schliiter ; and a monograph 

 of the species of Homalonotus in the Lower Devonian 

 rocks of the Rhine, by C. Koch. 



The plan of operations for 1883 included further 

 surveys in the Harz, Thuringia, and the Thuringer- 

 wald, Hesse-Nassau, Rhine province, Silesia, and the 

 great lowlands of Prussia. 



The most important feature of the Annual Reports of 

 the Prussian Geological Survey is the series of papers 

 by members of the staff and others, with illustrative 

 coloured maps and sections. Of these papers no fewer 

 than twenty-two are published in the Report for 1882, 

 including four by geologists not attached to the staft', 

 and arnounting in all to nearly 700 pages, with 23 plates 

 of maps, sections, and fossils. Among these the following 

 important communications may be cited : — " The Kulm 

 of the Upper Harz," and " The Kersantite Dyke of the 

 Upper Harz," by A. von Groddeck ; " The Fauna of the 

 Taunus Quartzite of the Rhine," by E. Kayser : '■ Pre- 

 glacial Freshwater Formations in the Diluvium of North 

 Germany," by K. Keilhack ; "The Variolite-bearing 

 Kulm Conglomerate of Hausdorf in Silesia,'' by E. 

 Dathe ; " New Borings in East and West Prussia," by 

 G. Berendt and A. Jentzsch ; " The Lower Devonian 

 Rocks of the Siegerland and their Associated \'eins," by 

 H. Schmeisser ; "The Trough of Eifel Limestone of 

 Hillesheini," by E. Schulz. 



NOTES 



Professor Sylvester has been elected a Foreign Member 



of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Gottingen, of which he 



