48 Obituary — Clement Reid. 



always a most careful and untiring worker, and even his times of 

 relaxation were devoted to some collateral aspect of his work. The 

 palaeontological side of his investigations always gained his close 

 attention. Quite early in his career he made botany a special study. 

 Certain seeds found in the "Forest Bed" needed determination, and 

 he began, for comparison, to collect the seeds of wild plants, which 

 seem at that time to have been strangely neglected, with the result 

 that he became perhaps the first authority on the subject, and 

 showed how much information regarding the climate of former times 

 was to be obtained from fossil seeds. The painstaking work of 

 himself and Mrs. Reid in the investigation of se°ds laboriously 

 washed out from certain deposits has resulted in the joint publication 

 of memoirs which may be regarded as monumental i' The Fossil 

 Flora of Tegelen - sur - Meuse," Yerhandl. d. Kg. Akad. v. 

 Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, 1907; "The Preglacial Fauna of 

 Britain," Journ. Linn. Soc. Botany, 1908; The Pliocene Floras of 

 the Dutch-Prussian Border, published by the Institute for the 

 Geological Exploration of the Netherlands, The Hague, 1915). 

 Mr. Beid's report upon the Pleistocene deposits at Hoxne was 

 largely based upon the seeds found in the more peaty parts of these 

 beds. An exceedingly interesting study of fossil Characese was in 

 progress by Mr. Beid at the time of his death in conjunction with 

 Mr. J. Groves, but the results have only just begun to be published. 

 This work seems to have been initiated by the examination of 

 silicified slabs of Purbeck rock showing beautifully preserved 

 sections of Chara stems, which led Mr. Beid to try artificial 

 weathering by weak acid on some impure limestones, and this led 

 to important discoveries in regard to anomalous structures in some 

 of these fossils (see Proc. Boy. Soc, B, vol. lxxxix, p. 252, 1916). 

 More recently, also in co-operation with Mr. J. Groves, the Chara 

 seeds from the Headon Beds, near his home at Milford, were 

 investigated, and a most important paper on the subject was read 

 before the Geological Society only a week or so ago, and will, we 

 hope, be published before long. 1 



Mr. Clement Beid was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society 

 in 1875, was awarded the Murchison Geological Fund in 1886, and 

 the Bigsby Gold Medal in 1897. He served for two periods on their 

 Council, and was Vice-President in 1913-16. He was elected 

 a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1888, and served two periods on 

 the Council. In 1899 he was elected a Fellow of the Boyal 

 Societv. The Boyal Geological Society of Cornwall awarded him the 

 Bolitho Gold Medal in 1911. 



Mr. Beid, having joined H.M. Geological Stuwey in 1874, was 

 advanced to the post of "Geologist" in 1894, became "District 

 Geologist" in 1901, and retired in January, 1913. Mr. Beid married 

 Miss E. M. Wynne Edwards in 1897, and upon his retirement went 

 to live at his new residence at Milford-on-Sea, where, after only 

 three short years, he passed peacefully away in the closing month 

 of the year 1916. 



1 See Keports and Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond., ante, p. 42. 



