306 Obituary—Robert Parr Whitfield. 
anyone the right to insist on their presence being considered the © 
leading characteristic of a product whose name indicates its resemblance 
to bricks. 
That the letters I have written may not be said to be wholly 
critical, may I add that I have lately examined a number of Malayan 
rocks with a view to determining the presence or otherwise of free 
aluminium hydroxides, and have not yet failed to obtain a positive 
result; but the work has been preliminary only, and I am not 
prepared to make definite statements as to the quantities present 
or the degree of hydration. A weathered granitic rock gaye over 
10 per cent. of alumina. A mass of kaolin afforded about 2 per cent. 
alumina. All the Malayan ‘laterites’ that I have examined yield 
a small quantity. The Malacca laterite, which is the only laterite 
in the Peninsula that I know of agreeing strictly with Buchanan’s 
definition, contains these hydroxides also. A grey clay-slate taken 
from the top of a pass far from granite outcrops and associated with 
quartzite yielded a precipitate of aluminium hydroxide equivalent 
to about ‘05 per cent. of alumina. 
I do not think for a moment that I am alone in supposing that 
the production of free aluminium hydroxides is widespread in the 
tropics, or that it is not confined to laterite in its widest sense; but 
what would be of great interest is a comparison along these lines 
of rocks in tropical and temperate regions, for it is hard to believe 
that the amount of hydroxides found in the tropics is other than 
a development of a process regulated by temperature, moisture, and 
perhaps vegetation, and that they are not being produced in smaller 
quantities in temperate climes also. 
J. B. Scrrvenor. 
Baru Gasan, 
FEDERATED ManaAy SrareEs. 
May 7, 1910. 
@ 13 eae ePAS re 
ROBERT PARR WHITFIELD. 
Born May 27, 1828. Diep Aprit 6, 1910. 
R. P. Waurrrretp, who was born in New Hartford, New York, had 
for fifty-four years been engaged in geological and paleontological 
work. He was one of James Hall’s assistants in the first State 
geological survey of Iowa, from 1856 to 1876; and he then became 
paleontologist to Professor T. C. Chamberlin’s State survey of 
Wisconsin. He laboured also for Clarence King in the Geological 
Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, contributing to the Paleontological 
Reports published in 1877. His researches were mainly on the fossils 
of the Paleozoic formations, and he dealt with all groups of Inverte- 
brata. From 1872 to 1878 he was Professor of Geology at the 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y., and since 1877 he had 
been Curator of the Geological Department in the American Museum 
of Natural History.? 
1 For most-of the above particulars we are indebted to Mr. G. P. Merrill’s 
Contributions to the History of American Geology, 1906. 
