478 Obituary — Alfred Nicholson Leeds. 



4. — ]\ t ew Meteorites. 



1I~R. GEORGE P. MERRILL in the Proceedings of the United 

 1VJL States National Museum descrihes two new meteorites. The 

 one (vol. li, pp. 525-6) is interesting because it was dredged up 

 from Lake Okechobee, Florida, by a fishing net, and may possibly 

 be a fragment of a meteorite which fell in that region about thirteen 

 years ago. The stone is still firm and shows the characteristic 

 crust. Under the microscope the chondritic nature of the stone is at 

 once evident. Altogether the various fragments secured amount to 

 about 1,100 grams. The other meteorite (vol. lii, pp. 419-22) 

 consists of three fairly complete individuals and a fragment, and 

 weighed altogether 7,605 grams. It is of the usual chondritic type, 

 but the finer details of the structure are obscured by oxidation. It 

 was found near Plainview, Hale County, Texas. 



OBITUARY. 



ALFRED NICHOLSON LEEDS, F.G.S. 



Born March 9, 1847. Died August 25, 1917. 



(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE XXXI.) 



"We regret to have to record the death of Mr. Alfred N. Leeds, one of 

 the most successful pioneers in the modern methods of collecting and 

 preserving fossil vertebrate skeletons. For nearly half a century he 

 had devoted his leisure to recovering the remains of fossil reptiles and 

 fishes from the brickfields in the Oxford Clay near Peterborough ; 

 and the thoroughly scientific and painstaking nature of his work can 

 be appreciated at once by a glance at the unique series of specimens 

 which he contributed to the Geological Department of the British 

 Museum (Natural History). 



The second son of Mr. Edward Thurlow Leeds, of Eyebury, 

 Peterborough, Alfred Leeds was born in his ancestral home seventy 

 years ago. He was educated at the Warwick Grammar School, and 

 afterwards desired to follow a medical career ; but circumstances 

 necessitated his assuming the management of the Eyebury farm, and 

 from 1868 onwards this was his daily occupation. His elder 

 brother, Mr. Charles E. Leeds, who was then studying at Oxford, 

 received encouragement from Professor John Phillips to persevere in 

 the collection of fossils round his home which he had already begun. 

 A large part of a Plesiosaurian skeleton which he had discovered was, 

 indeed, described by Phillips in his Geology of Oxford and the Thames 

 Valletj (1871). Under such stimulus he was soon joined by Alfred 

 Leeds, and the two brothers gradually perfected methods of extracting 

 the skeletons from the soft clay which were more scientific and 

 thorough than had ever been attempted before. By liberal rewards 

 they induced the workmen not to dig up bones themselves, but to 

 send notice of each discovery to Eyebury. One or both the brothers 

 would then disinter the specimens with their own hands, noting the 

 mode of occurrence of every fragment and clearly distinguishing the 



