384 Obituary — Professor Voldemar Ainalitsky. 



Mr, Watson -was born in tlie North of England in 1842, and spent 

 most of his life in jS^ewcastle-upon-Tyne, where he became Managing 

 Director of the Gateshead Works for the manufacture of Portland 

 cement. Some years ago, on retiring from business, he removed to 

 Cambridge, where he resided until his death. Disdaining a life of 

 ease, he devoted his special knowledge and great energy to the 

 acquisition of an unrivalled collection of building-stones, ornamental 

 marbles, and other materials connected witli building. These he 

 presented to the Sedgwick Museum, and spent his leisure in arranging 

 them and writing descriptive catalogues. Two of the catalogues 

 have already been published, and are well known to geologists and 

 to those connected with building, namely, British and Foreign 

 Building Stones and British and Foreign Marbles and other Ornamental 

 Stones. At the time of his death he was engaged in the preparation 

 of manuscripts for books on slates, limes, and cements, and it is 

 hoped that the material is in a state which will permit of its 

 publication in the not distant future. 



Mr. Watson made many journeys at home and abroad in order to 

 render his collection as complete as possible, for he spared neither 

 time nor money in carrying out his self-imposed task; accordingly 

 the collection remains with us, a worthy monument to his labours, 

 specially valuable at a time when the claims for the teaching of 

 economic geology have become insistent. 



In 1911 the University of Cambridge recognized the value of 

 his labours by conferring upon him the honorary degree of Master 

 of Arts. 



He died as the result of an accident — a fall from a ladder — on 

 July 3. 



Mr. Watson was greatly esteemed for his sterling character, 

 singular modesty, and charm of manner. His colleagues at 

 Cambridge will greatly miss the cheery ways and eager enthusiasm 

 of their okl friend, but it is satisfactory to know that he had completed 

 so much of the work which he set out to accomplish, which was to 

 him veritably a labour of love. 



J. E. M. 



PROFESSOR VOLDEMAR AMALITSKY. 



News has just been received, by a letter posted in Petrograd on 

 March 2, that Professor Voldemar Amalitsky died suddenly from 

 heart disease on December 15/28, 1917, at Kislovodsk (North 

 Caucasus). Many friends in this country would wish to convey 

 their sympathy to his widow, who we trust may emerge safely from 

 these terrible times. 



We hope later to publish a full notice of Amalitsky's great work 

 in the discovery and rescue of numbers of entire skeletons of 

 Permian (or Triassic) reptiles from the banks of the Northern 

 Dwina, near Archangel, in Northern liussia, 1904 and earlier (see 

 Geol. Mag., 1905, p. 514). 



F, A. B. 



