APRIL 29, 1915| 
NATURE 
253 

in 1871, and was placed second in the first class 
of the Natural Science Tripos. Joining the Geo- 
logical Survey of India in 1874, he began his 
scientific career in the mountains of Kashmir, of 
which he made a successful pioneer geological 
exploration. While there his opportunities for 
sport continued to foster his interest in zoology, 
and he soon acquired a good knowledge of the 
mammals and birds of the country. The great 
collection of Tertiary mammalian remains in the 
Indian Museum at Calcutta then attracted his 
attention, and he began a systematic study of 
these fossils, which he described in the Palaeonto- 
logia Indica. 
With little material for comparison in India, 
and needing the corresponding collections in the 
British Museum for reference, Mr. Lydekker soon 
recognised the necessity of returning to London 
if his work was to be exhaustive. He accord- 
ingly retired from the Indian Survey in 1882, had 
the fossils from Calcutta sent in instalments to 
London, and by 1887 had completed the fine series 
of volumes describing not only the Siwalik Verte- 
brata, but also the pre-Tertiary Vertebrata of 
India. At the same time, between 1885 and 1887, 
Mr. Lydekker prepared for the British Museum 
a catalogue of the fossil mammals in the depart- 
ment of geology (in five parts), which was fol- 
lowed by similar catalogues of the fossil reptiles 
and amphibians (four parts, 1888-90), and fossil 
birds (one part, 1891). Though presenting only 
a somewhat hasty and superficial view of the 
subject, these catalogues were at the time of real 
utility; and they are noteworthy as the first 
systematic attempt to correlate the European with 
the more recently discovered American fossils. 
In 1893, and again in 1894, Mr. Lydekker 
visited the Argentine Republic and spent some 
months in studying the wonderful collection of 
fossil vertebrates in the La Plata Museum. His 
work was published in two handsomely illustrated 
volumes (‘“‘Anales del Museo de La Plata,” tomos 
II., III.), and gave the first satisfactory account 
of several of the peculiar extinct vertebrates of 
South America. His descriptions of ancestral 
Cetacea from the Tertiary, and Dinosaurian 
remains from the Cretaceous, formations are 
especially valuable. The visits to South America 
led Mr. Lydekker to appreciate more thoroughly 
the need for considering the evidence of fossils 
when dealing with questions of geographical dis- 
tribution, and in 1896 he published a ‘“Geo- 
graphical History of Mammals,” which is in many 
respects his most original and important work. 
While occupied with purely scientific research, 
Mr. Lydekker did not overlook the needs of 
ordinary students, amateurs, and sportsmen, and 
during his later years most of his numerous writ- 
ings were adapted for their use. So long ago as 
1889 he contributed the volume on vertebrates to 
the third edition of Nicholson’s ‘‘Manual of 
Paleontology,” and in 1891 he co-operated with 
Sir William Flower in “An Introduction to the 
Study of Mammals.’”’ Between 1893 and 1806 
he also edited the “Royal Natural History,” and 
NO. 2374, VOL. 95] 


wrote the section on vertebrata. Work of this 
kind was facilitated by his occupation at the 
British Museum in arranging the exhibited collec- 
tions of mammals and reptiles in the department 
of zoology, where he was employed from 1896 
until the time of his death. He not only arranged 
the collections in an admirable manner, but also 
prepared several valuable guide-books. His last 
work was a catalogue of Ungulate mammals in 
the British Museum, of which three parts were 
published, and the fourth, completing the Artio- 
dactyla, was left by him nearly ready for issue. 
Mr. Lydekker was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
Society in 1894, and was awarded the Lyell Medal 
by the Geological Society in 1902. 
IDIxes Vives Wo SIDILIE, » JARI ES 
Wy es JAMES SELL, university lecturer 
and senior demonstrator in chemistry at the 
University of Cambridge, died at Cambridge after 
a long illness on March 7. He was born at 
Cambridge in 1847, and for more than fifty years 
was connected with the chemical laboratories 
there, and contributed in no small degree to their 
development and success. He was barely fifteen 
when, on the recommendation of the master of the 
elementary school which he attended, he was em- 
ployed at the chemical laboratory of St. John’s 
College, at that time the only one in the 
University open to undergraduates. Here he 
learnt elementary analysis and the use of ap- 
paratus, heard the professor’s lectures, and saw 
his experiments. He made good use of his 
opportunities, and soon made himself an efficient 
assistant. In 1865, when the Jacksonian pro- 
fessor of natural philosophy removed his ap- 
paratus into a new building, the room vacated by 
him was united with that of the professor of 
chemistry, and a room built above them for a 
students’ laboratory, the first step taken by the 
University, in its corporate capacity as distinct 
from the colleges, to provide experimental training 
for its students. Here Sell was appointed 
attendant, and had charge of the apparatus, and 
not only assisted the professor in the experiments 
at his lectures, which at that time embraced 
physics as well as chemistry proper, but was 
much in demand to help the students, whose 
notions of making experiments were often crude. 
The laboratory was a poor place at best in com- 
parison with modern laboratories, but it grew and 
became filled with students, to which result Sell’s 
help contributed not a little. 
In 1870 Sell married, and soon after entered 
Christ’s College and matriculated in the Univer- 
sity. He had acquired a good knowledge of 
chemistry, and of some other branches of natural 
science, and knew a little of modern languages, 
but no degree could be obtained at Cambridge 
without some acquaintance with Latin and Greek, 
and he had not learnt either. It was a formid- 
able task to begin now, but he faced it with his 
usual quiet determination, studying Latin and 
Greek at all times when his duties at the labora- 
