288 Obituary— Waiter Keeping, M.A. 
suddenly struck down by a form of paralysis, well known to medical 
men, which seldom spares its victim so long as in the present case. 
Previous to those six years we see him in full intellectual activity, 
after.a distinguished University career and a period of further train- 
ing as a teacher himself, settled down in charge of the magnificent 
collections in the York Museum, and giving promise of much 
valuable work for science. 
His early education was carried on alongside of work, which he 
had to perform in positions of more or less importance and trust, 
ending in the post of assistant to his father in the Woodwardian 
Museum. At the age of 19 he won a Scholarship at Christ’s College, 
and in due course graduated, obtaining a distinguished position in 
the First Class of the Natural Sciences Tripos of 1877. He con- 
tinued to work in the Woodwardian Museum until he was appointed 
Professor of Natural Science in the University College of Wales at 
Aberystwith. His quickness of observation always attracted him 
to the study of the Geology of the district in which he resided. 
The Lower Greensand of the neighbourhood of Cambridge, with 
its derivative fossils and rocks, as well as those which belonged to 
the age of the deposit, had received great importance from the 
economic value of the phosphatic nodules it contained, and early 
engaged his attention. It was then beginning to be the fashion to 
speak of it as Neocomian. In 1875 he published a paper in the 
GrotocicaAL Macazine on “The Occurrence of Neocomian . Sands 
with Phosphatic Nodules at Brickhill.” Five years later he con- 
tributed a paper to this Macazrnz on “The Included Pebbles of the 
Upper Neocomian Sands of the South Hast of England, especially 
those of the Upware and Potton Pebble-beds”; and in 1883 the 
Sedgwick Prize was awarded him for his Essay upon ‘'The Fossils 
and Paleontological Affinities of the Neocomian Deposits of Upware 
and Brickhill.” 
He was especially interested in the Echinodermata, and in 1876 
and 1878 contributed some valuable Paleontological Notes to the 
Journal of the Geological Society in his papers on Paleozoic Echini ; 
on the Discovery of Melonites in Britain; and on Pelanechinus, 
anew genus of sea-urchins from the Coral Rag. 
On his appointment to the Chair of Natural Science at Aberyst- 
with, he turned his attention to the geology of the surrounding 
district, which he described in this Magazine in 1878, and ina 
paper on “ The Geology of Central Wales,” read before the Geological 
Society in 1881. 
These and various other notes and papers, recording observations 
made by him in the British Isles and on the Continent, show a keen 
perception of details and a power of generalization, which led his 
friends to anticipate for him a long career of distinction and useful: 
work. But soon after his appointment to the Curatorship of the 
York Museum, his health broke down, and after six years painful 
illness, he passed away in February, 1888. 
Tos. McKrnny Hucues. 
