288 Obituary— Rev. J. E. Tenkon Woods. 



COE-BESPOUDEITCE. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD NATURALISTS' FIELD CLUB. 



Sir, — Over the familiar initials H. B. W. appears a notice of the 

 above Club, vol. ix. pt. iv. (Geol. Mag. Dec. III. Vol. VII. 

 p. 88). A large part of this notice is, I am sorry to see, occupied 

 in a criticism upon my system of nomenclature. 



Mr. H. B. W. is, really, not complimentary to the members of the 

 Cotteswold Field Club. He leads us to imagine that they are unable 

 to cope with anything which has not been thoroughly approved of, 

 and digested by, the text-books, not as if one were writing for 

 scientific men, but as if one were addressing the raw students of 

 a newly-formed Natural History class. 



Another idea which H. B. W. puts forth is, that there shall be 

 really two systems of nomenclature — one for the use of specialists 

 among themselves, and the other for the consumption of stratigra- 

 phists and general readers. Already there are complaints that one 

 system is enough to remember ; now we are to have two, to be 

 varied according to the supposed capacities of the audience ! What 

 would be the result ? The stratigraphist would soon be unable to 

 comprehend the palaeontologist, instead of being gradually educated 

 up to him, as at present. 



I can, however, throw out one suggestion whereby all authors 

 can help the general reader, namely, by differentiating, in lists of 

 fossils, Brachiopoda, Cephalopoda, etc., by the use of those terms as 

 headings ; or, sometimes, by indicating smaller divisions, such as 

 Ammonites, Goniatites, Nautili. The general reader would know 

 then, at any rate within some limits, to what an unknown generic 

 name applied. This suggestion, however, is quite as necessary to 

 those using old, as to those employing new, generic names. 



S. S. Buckman. 



OBITUARY. 



JOHN EDWARD TENISON WOODS. 

 One of the pioneers of Australian geology has passed away by 

 the death of the late Vicar-general of Adelaide. Mr. Woods first 

 settled in Australia about 1857, and in that year issued his paper, 

 " Observations on some Metamorphic Kocks in S. Australia." This 

 was followed by others, " Geological Observations on S. Australia," 

 in 1862, and by his "Tertiary Fossils of South Australia," in 1865. 

 His greatest work, " A History of the Discovery and Exploration of 

 Australia," was published in 1862, and besides being a most useful 

 compilation, it contained some valuable additions to Australian 

 palaeontology. In 1867, in a paper on " The Glacial Deposits in 

 Australia," he made the first attempt to prove the past existence of 

 an Ice age in that Continent. In later years Mr. Woods rather 

 abandoned geology, but he did much good work on the recent 

 mollusca of Australia and Tasmania. He was also interested and 

 wrote occasionally on meteorology. In 1880 he served as President 

 of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. He died at Sydney 

 on the 9th of October, 1SS9. 



