October 12, 1905] 



NA TURE 



587 



An interval of leisure then followed, during which 

 Captain Wharton published " Hydrographical Survey- 

 ing." He expresses himself with characteristic 

 modesty in the preface, but it was at once universally 

 recognised as the standard work on the subject, and 

 has continued to be so considered to the present time, 

 being used both in our own and in foreign navies. 



In March, 1882, he commissioned H.M.S. Sylvia 

 for surveying service in the River Plate and Straits 

 of Magellan. It was already an open secret that he 

 ■was destined to succeed Captain Sir Fred. Evans as 

 Hydrographer to the .\dmiralty when that officer 

 should retire. In December, 1882, he successfully 

 observed the transit of Venus for the second time. 

 The anxieties of two seasons in the inhospitable 

 climate and dangerous waters of the western part 

 of the Straits of Magellan told upon Wharton con- 

 siderably, and at this time he aged much in appear- 

 ance. But, full of energy as ever, the work was 

 pushed on rapidly in spite of the hardships and 

 difficulties that had to be encountered, with the result 

 that the survey was completed within the allotted 

 time, and on returning' to Montevideo in March, 1884, 

 he left the ship and proceeded to England by mail 

 steamer to assume the duties of hydrographer, being 

 appointed as such on ."Kugust i, 1884, at an age 

 younger than that of any officer who had held that 

 responsible position. This closed his career afloat. 



Wharton's administration of the hydrographic de- 

 partment of the Admiralty continued uninterruptedly 

 for twenty years with constantly increasing credit, 

 and to the great advantage of our own Navy as well 

 as to the whole maritime world. This period covered 

 the enormous expansion that took place both in the 

 personnel and materiel of the fleet, causing corre- 

 sponding accessions to the labour of departmental 

 work ; during the same period the number of chart 

 plates was largely increased, and the number of 

 charts printed annually for the fleet and for sale to 

 the public multiplied three-fold. 



Gifted with an extraordinary capacity for work, he 

 never spared himself; the sound judgment, breadth 

 of view, and wide scientific attainments constantly 

 brought to bear upon the infinite variety of subjects 

 with which he was daih' called upon to deal secured 

 for him the respect and confidence of successive 

 Boards of Admiralty. An especial characteristic was 

 the readiness with which the mass of information 

 he had acquired on all sorts of subjects was available 

 on the spur of the moment. .\s ex-officio member of 

 the Meteorological Council, he attended its meetings 

 assiduously and rendered valuable service to the 

 advancement of ocean meteorology. 



His personal interest in the surveying service w'as 

 unceasingly manifested in the voluminous semi-official 

 correspondence he maintained with the officers in 

 command of surveys. Scientific subjects of whatever 

 nature bearing on hydrography always claimed his 

 attention, and in 1886 he was elected a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society, serving on its council from 1888 to 

 i88g, again from 1895 to 1897, and being again 

 elected in 1904 was a member until his death. 



As Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, as 

 well as of the Royal Geographical Society, as vice- 

 president of the latter and member of numerous com- 

 mittees, he did work only less iinportant than 

 his official work at the .Admiralty. His first 

 contribution to the literature of the Royal Society 

 was the investigation of the great waves pro- 

 duced by the eruptions of Krakatoa in 18S2, which 

 had been begun bv the late Sir Frederick Evans and 

 left unfinished at his death. In 189.^ he edited the 

 journal of Captain Cook during his first voyage 

 round the world ; at the meeting of the British 

 Association at Oxford in 1S94 he presided over 



NO. 1876, VOL. 72I 



Section E. Various contributions to Nature appeared 

 from time to time from his pen, the investigation of 

 the origin and formation of coral reefs being a sub- 

 ject of especial interest to him. He advanced a 

 theory, based upon the results of surveys of large 

 numbers of these reefs, that the effect of wave action 

 was mainly accountable for the striking uniformity 

 of depth so frequently met with over the interior of 

 coral banks in the open ocean, showing that wave 

 action in open oceans extended to greater depths than 

 was hitherto considered possible. 



.\s a member of the coral reef committee of the 

 Royal Society, he was largely responsible for the 

 selection of Funafuti as the atoll to be investigated 

 by sounding and boring operations, and he was 

 instrumental in securing the cooperation of the 

 .Admiralty in the work, which has produced such 

 valuable results. 



He was keenly interested in the project for Antarctic 

 exploration, but more particularly in its bearing upon 

 terrestrial magnetism, and he took a very active part 

 as a member of the joint committee of the Royal 

 and Royal Geographical Societies appointed to 

 organise it. 



He was placed on the retired list in 1891, in accord- 

 ance with the regulation respecting non-service at 

 sea. Promoted to Rear-Admiral on January i, 1895, 

 on the Queen's birthday that year he was nominated 

 as C.B."" On the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee in 

 1897 he was created K.C.B. 



On July 31, 1904, Sir William Wharton resigned 

 the office of hydrographer. For some years previously 

 he had suffered much inconvenience and pain owing 

 to an injury to his right wrist received whilst serving 

 in the Shearwater ; for this and other causes he deter- 

 mined to relinquish the appointment. In July last, 

 after a visit to .-Mx-les-Bains, he accepted with some 

 hesitation the reiterated invitation to go out to South 

 .\frica with a party of members of the British 

 .Association, and he presided over Section E at Cape 

 Town. Unfortunately he fell ill on the return journey 

 from the Victoria Falls, and could not return to 

 England as he intended, with his friends, in the 

 Armadale Castle. His illness, which was at first 

 thought to be a chill, proved to be enteric fever com- 

 plicated with pneumonia, and although no effort was 

 spared to effect his recovery he died at the observ- 

 atory at Cape Town on September 29, where he was 

 the 'guest of his old and valued friends Sir David 

 and ' Ladv Gill. He was buried at the Naval 

 Cemetery at Simon's Town on October 1 with full 

 naval honours, H.M. the King being represented by 

 the Commander-in-Chief of the station. He was 

 married, in 1880, to Lucy Georgina, daughter of Mr. 

 Edward Holland, of Du'mbledon, in Gloucestershire, 

 and by her, who survives him, he had two daughters 

 and three sons, two of whom ;ire now serving in 

 H.M. Navy. A. M. F. 



GEORGE BOWDLEK BUCKTON, F.R.S. 



ONE of the most energetic and laborious, as well 

 as one of the oldest of our British entomologists, 

 Mr. George Bowdler Buckton, died on September 25 

 in his eighty-eighth year. .Mthough he was always 

 interested in' natural history, it is somewhat remark- 

 able that, while many men take up the study of 

 entomology in early life and abandon it later, all his 

 important entomological work was executed late in 

 life, and was carried on until a very short period 

 before his death. 



Mr. Buckton was born at Hornsey on May 24, 1818. 

 He was privately educated, being debarred from enter- 

 ing a public school by an accident in boyhood which 

 crippled him for life. 



