Jan. 27, 188 [] 



NATURE 



29: 



attending, the ordinary mode of calculating the same 

 force, and proposed instead a method requiring for its 

 appUcation only the use of the dip-circle, a vast advantage 

 to the traveller, as it reduced to the smallest possible 

 number the instruments which he would have to tarry. 



Along with his friend Sabine he visited the chief Conti- 

 nental cities in 1S39, going as far as Berlin. This tour 

 was altogether undertaken for the purposes of establishing 

 still further a system of joint records of magnetical pheno- 

 mena. His chief work in connection with magnetism was 

 published under the title of ''The Dublin Magnetical and 

 Meteorological Observations " (2 vols. 4to, I S65-69). In 

 1857, when the British Association visited Dublin for a 

 second time, Lloyd was their president, and many will 

 still remember his dignified and courteous behaviour as 

 such. 



When, in 1867, Dr. Lloyd was appointed provosi, there 

 was scarcely one dissentient voice. He had distinguished 

 himself in his college career ; his researches had reflected 

 lustre on his university, and the belief in him was never 

 shaken. During his period of office as Senior Fellow 

 the study of the experimental sciences w'as introduced 

 into the curriculum; in 1851 it was even possible to 

 graduate as a Gold Medallist in these. To the experi- 

 mental sciences were at first joined the natural sciences. 

 During his provostship, these two groups were separated, 

 to the great encouragement of the students in both. It 

 was something wonderful to find how the now aged pro- 

 vost kept pace with the time, encouraging in every way 

 the more modern view of things. Among the Professors 

 and Fellows of his college he was very popular; he was 

 always affable, while he possessed a quiet digniiy. Proudly 

 consciou-; of the position he held as Provost of Trinity 

 College, he was singularly unambitious of worldly honours, 

 but the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the sister Uni- 

 versity of Oxford, conferred on him in 1856, was grateful 

 to him, and he always spoke with pleasure of the 

 recognition of his sdentific merits by the Emperor of 

 Germany, who conferred on him in 1S74 the order "Pour 

 le Mdrite;" he was a F. R.SS. Lond. and Edin. He 

 received the Cunningham gold medal of the Royal Irish 

 Academy in 1862. 



GEOLOGISING AT SHEPPEY 

 00 much has been said about the abundance of fossil 

 *--' fruits at S^eppey that most geologists picture them 

 lying plentifully upon the shore waiting to be picked up, 

 and their only concern might well be at tiie outset to 

 provide baskets strong and ample enough to conxey their 

 collectings hom2. A day spent u.ion ihe bca.h would 

 dispel these pre:onceived ideas. 



The cliffs in a wet season are streams of liquid mud 

 alternating with freshly-fallen landslips rendering them 

 practically unappro.ichable. The wet and irost have this 

 year proved exceptionally disastrous, and mere shreds of 

 coast-paths remain. In places slabs of freshly-ploughed 

 land are arrested half-way down the cliff, and at one 

 point a cabbage garden with the produce still only partly 

 cut is streaming down to the beach. It is a gojd time 

 for the cement works, but when Roman cement falls into 

 disuse, as it seems likely to, then perhaps steps will be 

 taken to stay this perpetual removal of fine arable land into 

 the channels of the Thames. The beach itself is gravelly, 

 and at low water there are extensive mud-flats. Among 

 the gravel are patches of rolled pyrites, and among the^e 

 pyrites the fruits are found, though valuable specimens 

 are rare. This Christmas five experienced collectors, 

 including Mr. W. H. Shrubsole, F.G.S., Mr. O. A. 

 Shrubsole, F.G.S., Dr. Hauslor, F.G.S., myself and 

 brother, searched for several hours without a single 

 fairly perfect fruit being found, and no greater success 

 attended us on subsequent days. The vast bulk of the 

 pyrites is amorphous ; the majority of that which retains 



any recognisable shape is made up of twigs ; a consider" 

 able percentage is of nearly obliterated casts of shells ; 

 and here and there are broken up Nipadites and other 

 water-worn fragments of fruits. The best way to collect 

 is to lie down upon the pyrites and examine it closely, 

 when seeds and twigs that are passed over by the 

 copperas.gatherers may be picked out. In this way I 

 found seeds and scales of Araucaria, twigs of Ephedra, and 

 many other shapes that may some day be recognised as 

 parts of still-existing plants. No rest, short of doing 

 absolutely nothing, could be more perfect to an overworked 

 geologist's brain than to sprawl and smoke upon this 

 beach. 



The fruits themselves are so rare in the London Clay 

 that they are seldom if ever found in situ, no prolific 

 patches are known, and to attempt to dig for them would 

 be futile. Their abundance in collections is due to the 

 facts that for several miles there are lofty cliffs perpetually 

 wasting away, and that the whole of the clay that reaches 

 the Ijeich is slowly removed in suspension by the sea, 

 every particle of pyrites remaining behind until picked 

 up for copperas or dissolved away. For two hundred years 

 they have been known and searched for daily by the sep- 

 taria and copperas collectors, and any one may quickly pur- 

 chase an extensive collection. I have within a few months 

 received from my friend Mr. Shrubsole enough Nipadites 

 to fill a twenty-gallon cask, besides other fruits innumer- 

 able. BoAerbank's collection numbers many thousands, 

 300 specimens of a rare cone alone from Heme Bay 

 having been in his possession. 'I here is in the British 

 Museum a MS. catalogue by a Mr. Crowe of Faversham, 

 with 831 very rough drawings representing, as he sup- 

 posed. 700 varieties. Etlingshausen, when he examined 

 the British Museum collection, made 200 species. How 

 many there may really be is still unknown, but the num- 

 ber doubtless is very considerably beyond the latter. 

 Among the Coniferas alone I have to add, besides the 

 Ephedra, a Podocarpiis near to P. elnta, a Fmwllit 

 almost indistinguish.able from /•"'. Endtiduri, and an 

 Araucaria near A. Cwiniiighaini. I have grave doubts 

 about the correctness of the determination of all the other 

 Conifcra; except a few of Bowerbank's Cupressinc^, and 

 am still at work upon them. The state in which they are 

 preserved is not sufficiently taken into account. The woody 

 matter is generally preserved as lignite, and easily removed 

 when rolled upon the beach, and the pyrites which 

 remains filled the cavities between the more solid parts, 

 as well as replacing the fruit itself. The densest and 

 most salient part now is the purest -pyrites, and was 

 therefore at the time of fossilisation probably the most 

 open part of the fruit or the filling in of cavities. 

 The c ists that are found are thus, in the case of hard- 

 shelled fruits, more often casts of the space between the 

 outer ligneous s'lell and the kerne', than of cither the 

 kernel or the shell itself. In the case, for instance, of an 

 ahnon 1, we should have most frequently a smooth cast of 

 the inside of the shell, but in perfect fruits the pitted 

 exterior would be preserved, and in fruits partially dis- 

 solved the wrinkled kernel would show. In fruits with 

 septa tlie variety of aspect presented in different stages 

 of preservation is very great, and has doubtless led to the 

 same species, being catalogued under several names. 

 The so-called Sequoia or Petrophiloides of Heme Bay 

 is aaother instance, for the filling-in between the open 

 scales of the cone was thought by Bowerbank to repre- 

 sent confluent scales inclosing cells, the supposed cells 

 being really the cavities left by the true scales which have 

 decayed away, while the infiltrated pyrites has enveloped 

 the seeds which lay under them. 



On Monday we took the 8 a.m. train to Heme Bay 

 and searched at Swalecliffe for cones. At Whitstable 

 we set sail in an oyster-boat for Shellness, but some 

 delay occurred in getting it off the ground ; the wind 

 dropped in the meantime, and we had to row. Sliellness 



