96 Obituary— Alfred R. C. Sehvyn. 



table ^ where certain strata are numbered to show their dates with 

 regard to a column of hemera affixed. This he declares makes 

 hemera a stratigraphical unit ! Does he mean to say that in an 

 ordinary calendar, when one has "Jan. 15 A B died; Jan. 16 YZ 

 died," that thereby Jan. 15, 16 become, not time-units, not chrono- 

 logical indicators of the sequence, but the numbers of the tombs- 

 wherein the people are buried ? 



He takes another table, p. 519, " Correlation of Zones and 

 Hemerae," and says that that shows the hemerse to be parts of 

 a zone. In a diary one shows the correlation between certain 

 events and certain days of the week. Does that make the days 

 of the week parts of the events ? The making of a piece of railway 

 embankment by the deposit of so much earth is set down as 

 occupying Monday and Tuesday ; does that make these two days 

 parts of a railway embankment ? According to Mr. Jukes-Browne 

 it does. A hemera (that is, Monday) is part of a zone (that is, the 

 railway embankment) — so he says of a geological diary. 



Having come to this remarkable conclusion he declares it is my 

 fault that people supposed hemera was used in a stratigraphical 

 sense, in spite of my distinct assertions to the contrary. Now I do 

 begin to see how it is that people use terms incorrectly — they do not 

 test them by expressions of every-day life. But that is their fault, 

 not mine. S. S. Buckbian. 



OSITTJJ^I^":^'. 



ALFRED R. C. SELWYN, C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



Born in 1824. Died November, 1902. 



By the death of this distinguished geologist, Canada has lost on© 

 of her leading men of science. Dr. Selwyn was associated with 

 the Geological Survey of Great Britain from 1845 to 1852. In 

 1853 he was appointed by the Colonial Office Director of the 

 Geological Survey of Victoria, Australia, a post which he held until 

 1869, when he retired owing to the Victorian Government refusing 

 to vote the supplies necessary to carry on the work. Eeturning to 

 England, on the retirement of Sir William Logan, Selwyn was at 

 once appointed Director of the Canadian Geological Survey, a post 

 which he held with distinction from 1869 to 1894, a period of 

 25 years, when he retired after 48 years of active and varied service, 

 such as few men can lay claim to have seen, in three different and 

 very distant quarters of the globe. 



On his retirement he took up his residence in Vancouver, British 

 Columbia, where for the past eight years he had enjoyed a well-earned 

 leisure, dying at the age of 78 years. His life, accompanied by 

 an excellent portrait, appeared in the Geological Magazine for 

 February, 1899 (Dec. IV, Vol. VI, pp. 49-55, PI. II). (See also 

 Daily Chronicle, November 8th, 1902.) H. W. 



? Quart. Journ. Geol. See, vol. xlix, facing p. 514, 



