342 Eminent Living Geologists — (r. W. Lamplugh. 



uader exceptional facilities arranged by the Australian Governments. 

 Not long after their arrival in the Commonwealth came the serious 

 intelligence that war had been declared with Germany, a misfortune 

 which overshadowed the programme and marred the closing stage of 

 the meeting. Mr. Lamplugh was fortunately able, owing to the 

 kindness of officials everywhere, to see much of the country, 

 particularly in Western Australia, before the outbreak of war, under 

 the guidance of Mr. Hariy P. Woodward and Professor AVoolnongh. 



Mr. Lamplugh is " no stranger in our midst", bat is well kaown 

 and highly esteemed in the scientific world, having been a Geological 

 Surveyor for twenty-six years, and served upon the Councils of the 

 Eoyal Society (1914-16), the Koyal Geographical Society, and the 

 Geological Society (1906-10, a Vice-President 1909-10, 1917), 

 and is now its President (1918). As a Yorkshireman he keeps up 

 his interest in all the amateur geological activities in the county. 

 He is a past-President of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, the Hull 

 Geological Society, and the Hertfordshire Natural History Society ; 

 and is an Honorary Member of the Rhodesian Scientific Association, 

 the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, the Natural History and 

 Antiquarian Society of the Isle of Man, and the Nottingham 

 Naturalists' Society. 



One who has worked with G. W. Lamplugh in the field and on the 

 Survey and known him for Some years writes : — 



" If I were compelled to compress into three words my impression 

 of Lamplugh's charactei', the ones I should choose would be courage, 

 determination, and consistency — the courage which spurred him to 

 break the current of his life and divert it to the work he loved and 

 knew he could do best ; the determination with which he has 

 mapped out his career, passing through each objective to the next 

 and never allowing an opportunity or experience to pass by unused ; 

 and the consistent high purpose which has guided the quality of his 

 work, whether in the drifts, the Speeton clays, the Trias, or, that 

 fool's paradise for geologists, the Isle of Man. 



" These are the qualities which one sees in the field. A keen and 

 accomplished observer as any glacial geologist must be or become, he has 

 the elasticity of mind which enables him to turn to the discrimination 

 of obscure igneous or metamorphic rocks, to the determination of 

 ammonites or belemnites, or to the registering of those minute 

 features of landscape which tell the history of physiography. Only 

 here we must add the physical fitness for hard and steady work, and 

 the disciplined imagination which have made the story of the Zam- 

 besi, or the glacial history of the Isle of Man, read like a fairj^ tale. 



" But it is when the day's work is done and there ' creep out the 

 little arts that please ' that we discover the man of wide reading 

 and liberal culture, of broad knowledge of places, men, and things, 

 of deep convictions and serious thought. Then, if not before, we 

 find the merciless critical faculty which takes nothing for granted, 

 the insight which looks down into the heart of things, and the 

 intolerance of sham and shoddy, which, seeking good in all, cannot 

 shut its eyes to the evidence that all is not always for the best. 



" Although he has undoubtedly read the hundred best books he has 



