Br. Alfred Harker, F.R.S. 291 



" With this reputation already established and yearly growing, you 

 were induced, at my request, to enter the Geological Survey. 

 Although the circumstances under which you joined that service 

 formed a new departure in its usages, I have always felt that on no 

 part of my long connection with the Survey could I look back with 

 more satisfaction than on the arrangements which enabled us to 

 secure your services. 



"You speedily acquired the skill of a practised surveyor, and among 

 the hills of Skye and Rum you had an opportunity of mapping some 

 of the most complicated and deeply interesting pieces of volcanic 

 geology in this country. Having had from time to time opportunities 

 of visiting you on the ground, I can bear witness both to the bodily 

 vigour and endurance and to the geological enthusiasm and insight 

 with which you climbed crags and peaks on which no geologist had 

 set foot before you. The maps and memoirs which you have 

 produced of these portions of the Inner Hebrides will always 

 remain as a monument of your prowess as a field geologist and 

 petrographer." 



Another of his fellow-workers writes : " What specially struck me 

 about Harker was his thoroughness. Having started on a piece of 

 work he devoted his whole energy to its completion. All else was- 

 subordinated to its execution, and one might almost literally say that 

 no stone was left unturned which would cast any light upon it." 



" He is one of those who believe that for the right understanding 

 of a science it is necessary to know something of the history of its 

 growth, and with this in view he has accumulated in his library 

 a valuable series of works which bear upon the early history of the 

 science of geology and the more recent branch of petrography. 



" Harker's time has been largely occupied by teaching and research, 

 but he has nevertheless contrived to devote much of it to the 

 enrichment of the petrographical collections in the Sedgwick 

 Museum, and to their arrangement. He has travelled much to 

 obtain specimens for this purpose. Of special interest are two 

 magnificent collections which he has brought together to illustrate 

 genetic connexion of igneous rocks, the one of those of Western 

 Scotland, the other of the group rendered classic by the researches of 

 Brogger in the Christiania region. 



"Though Harker's fame rests largely on his petrographical work he 

 is also a physical geologist of a very high order, as might be expected 

 from one who prefaced his geological career by a mathematical 

 training. We may make special mention of the very important 

 contribution which he made to the physics of glacial erosion in his 

 paper on Ice Erosion in the Cuillin Hills (Skye), which appeared 

 in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1901 

 (T.R.S.E., vol. xl, pt. ii)." 



In addition to his service to science, as a Lecturer in Petrology in 

 the University, Dr. Harker has published most of the results of his 

 investigations, whether in the field, the laboratory, or with the 

 microscope, in a permanent form, for the use of geologists generally ; 

 and the Editor is happy to record that, of his numerous publications, 

 fifty are preserved in the pages of the Geological Magazine. 



