570 Obituary— H. J. Slack. 



periodical publications. In 1800 Henry James Slack commenced 

 to write ieaders for the Weekly Times, which he continued until 1884. 



Keenly alive to all political and social reforms, and spending his 

 time and money most generously in the cause of national and 

 unsectarian education, he was at the same time earnestly devoted 

 to scientific pursuits. He joined the Geological Society of London 

 in 1849 (having been at the time of his death a Fellow for 47 years). 

 Anions his numerous scientific papers three only bear directly on 

 Geologv, namely : " On Coccoliths and Coccospheres in Keigate 

 Sandstone" ; "Notes on the Comparative Geology of the Earth and 

 Moon " ; and "Life Changes on the Globe." 



One of his most valuable labours for the promotion of 

 science was the editing of Recreative Science (published by 

 Messrs. Groombridge and Sons), which was enlarged successively 

 into the Intellectual Observer, and lastly into the Student. As 

 the popular exponent of science, this periodical occupied, for 

 about twenty years, a first-class position, and possibly might 

 have survived even to the present day, but for the triple 

 dangers of alterations in form, in size, and in title, which it 

 underwent at the hands of its metamorphotic publishers and editor, 

 had not the former terminated their publishing business, and the 

 latter his duties as editor! Dr. S. P. Woodward, Dr. G. S. Brady, 

 Dr. P. Lutley Sclater, Dr. H. Woodward, Dr. P. Martin Duncan, 

 Dr. Wright, Professor Sir Wyville Thomson, and many other 

 distinguished men of science, contributed to Mr. Slack's monthly 

 magazine, and its pages abounded with good scientific articles. 



Of the Royal Microscopical Society he may be said to have been 

 one of the founders, and he filled in succession the offices of 

 Secretaiy and of President. In addition to the keen interest which 

 Mr. Slack took in all microscopical research, he was also an 

 enthusiastic student of Astronomy, and erected a telescope about 

 1867, at his residence in Camden Square, which had some points 

 of novelt} 7 , being a Newtonian, mounted equatorially on a stand 

 designed by Mr. Browning and himself, having a silver-on-glass 

 speculum and a prism instead of a mirror at the eye-tube (see 

 Intellectual Observer, vol. ix, p. 276). Always interested in politics 

 and in all matters relating to education and social pi-ogress, and 

 being a strong democrat in principles, in 1879, when President of 

 the National Sunday League, he instituted Sunday Evening 

 Entertainments for the People, giving popular scientific lectures 

 himself, with illustrations, and always with selections of good 

 classical music. 



His scientific papers mostly appeared in the Intellectual Observer 

 and Student, and bear chiefly upon microscopical research. Some 

 of his work on Infusoria was published in a small book entitled 

 " Marvels of Pond Life," which passed through three editions. 



In later years Mr. Slack removed from London to a delightful 

 country residence, Ashdown Cottage, Forest Row, Sussex, where he 

 spent the last ten or fifteen years of his always happy, busy, literary 

 and scientific life. 



