Obituary — Captain Marshall Hall. 573 



of a great need. The need is that of a serviceable index to each, 

 or all of the completed monographs. Personally I have felt the 

 absence of such a help most sorely in Davidson's large work on 

 the Brachiopoda, and have wasted much time in searching for such 

 well-known British species as Productns Martini or P. productus, 

 Lingula Voltzii, and Hemithyris angustifrons (I mention examples 

 from the last two days only). My colleagues say that equal 

 difficulty is experienced with other monographs. We shall perhaps 

 be told that indices are already published to these monographs; 

 that may be, but they rarely contain what one wants, and some 

 of them are not even arranged in alphabetical order. The 

 proposal, then, is that a real index should be compiled to all 

 the volumes as yet published by the Palaeontographical Society ; 

 that it should contain every name mentioned, either in the text 

 or in the explanation to the plates, whether synonym, variety, 

 species, or genus ; that these names should be arranged alpha- 

 betically under both generic and trivial names ; that the index 

 should be compiled by some experienced person or persons ; that 

 it should be published in octavo form, two columns to a page, 

 certainly not in quarto form, and not on thick paper. The cost 

 of preparing and publishing such an index might be defrayed 

 partly by special subscription, partly by substituting it for a 

 portion of the volume for one year. Most scientific men, including 

 the members of the Palaeontographical Society, would probably 

 be more grateful for a good index than for another instalment of 

 new species. By publishing this letter in your widely-read 

 Magazine, you will perhaps elicit the views of geologists in general, 

 and the Council of the Palasontographical Society would see what 

 support was likely to be forthcoming. 



F. A. Bather. 



OBITUARY. 



CAPTAIN MARSHALL HALL. 



Born February 6, 1831. Died April 14, 1896. 



Marshall Hall, late Captain in the Eoyal East Middlesex 

 Militia, J. P. for Wilts, F.G.S., F.C.S., etc., was born in London 

 on February 6, 1831, and died at Parkstone, Dorset. April 14, 1696. 



As the only child of an eminent physician and physiologist, he 

 was brought up in an atmosphere of science from early days, and 

 it is to this circumstance that his 'penchant for things scientific was 

 in a great measure due. Thus, he was at all times very handy 

 with his microscope, which he found useful both in his chemical 

 and mineralogical investigations. Besides an interest in science, 

 mountaineering and yachting had strong attractions for him, and it 

 was these three factors which largely influenced his career. 



No one science could claim his exclusive allegiance ; but he 

 evinced an interest in Geology when he became a Fellow of the 

 Geological Society in 1866, most probably at the suggestion of his 



