574 Obituary — Captain Marshall Ball. 



intimate friend, Morris. Shortly after taking this stop a brief 

 notice from his pen, in the Gkological Magazink. showed that 

 he had already begun to interest himself in the glaciers of Norway, 

 as he claimed to have made a rough survey of ice-tracts at the end 

 of fiords where no yacht had ever been seen before. 



Probably the best thing that Marshall Hall ever did for scientific 

 investigation was by organizing the cruise of the "Noma " in 1870. 

 It is true that on this occasion he was ably seconded by two re- 

 markable men, Saville-Kent and Edward Fielding ; to the former of 

 whom especially the scientific credit of this most successful essay 

 in marine zoology was due. Still, it was on the initiation, and 

 mainly at the expense, of Marshall Hall that these results were 

 obtained ; and they are all the more striking when we remember 

 that this expedition took place three years before the "Challenger" 

 started on her memorable voyage. 



A few years afterwards (1874) we find Marshall Hall, still full 

 of enthusiasm, making a proposal in the Geological Magazine for 

 a "Swiss Geological Ramble"; and he asks the then President of 

 the Geologists' Association (Dr. Woodward) what he would think 

 of this extended excursion. Two years subsequently he was busily 

 engaged, in conjunction with Sorby, Haughton, Heddle, and others, 

 in founding the Mineralogical Society. The first contribution to 

 the Journal of that Society (August, 1876) is a short note written 

 by himself and Clifton Ward " Upon a portion of Basalt from the 

 Mid-Atlantic." 



From time to time he contributed short papers to the Mineralogical 

 Society, not forgetting to suggest collaboration amongst mineralogists. 

 As he was now for the most part resident in Switzerland, the rocks 

 of the Yal d'Anniviers and the Saasthal supplied him with a congenial 

 theme. Here both his chemical knowledge and his climbing pro- 

 pensities were of use. Thus, in 1882 he narrates how he traced 

 certain euphotides and serpentines to an arrete, some 10,000 feet 

 high, descending from the Allalinhorre, and he compares the rocks 

 thus observed in situ with transported masses occurring in the 

 neighbourhood of Veytaux and Geneva. 



More recently, and since he came back to England, Marshall Hall 

 returned with renewed ardour to an old love — the study of glaciers. 

 His Alpine experiences helped him here. In this connection his 

 friend and collaborates; Professor Forel, writes 1 that Hall had 

 often contributed original notes to the reports on glacial variations 

 issued by himself. Later, in 1891, when living at Parkstone, 

 Marshall Hall continued to follow up this subject with great eager- 

 ness, and obtained from the Alpine Club the formation of a com- 

 mittee charged with the care of studying the oscillations of the 

 glaciers in different parts of the British Empire. In 1893 he 

 contributed a short paper to the Geological Magazine on " Glacier 

 Observations, more especially Colonial," being the substance of two 

 articles which had already appealed in the Alpine Journal. He was 

 successful also in interesting the Colonial authorities in his scheme. 

 1 " In Memoriani" : Alpine Journal, August, 189C, p. 176. 



