Editorial Notes. 147 



few geologists can afford the time to reside for a term in Cambridge 

 for this special purpose. 



***** 

 The list of fifteen candidates selected by the Council for election to 

 the Royal Society contains several names of interest to geologists. 

 The many contributions of Dr. J. W. Evans to geology and mineralogy 

 are well known to all, as well as his wide experience of travel and 

 his activities at the Imperial Institute. He is also now taking 

 a prominent part in the organization of the new Imperial Mineral 

 Resources Bureau. Dr. W. D. Mattbew is a Canadian palaeontologist 

 who has contributed largely to our knowledge of the fossil mammals 

 of the North American Continent, especially by his generalizations 

 as to the phylogeny of the Cervidse, Felidse, and other groups. 

 Sir Charles F. Close, Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, is 

 responsible for the excellent maps which are so invaluable for 

 geological work of all kinds in this country. Mr. E. Heron-Allen, 

 although primarily a protozoologist, recently gave a most interesting 

 lecture before the Geological Society on the application of X-ray 

 photography to the elucidation of the structure of minute fossils, 

 especially Foraminifera, showing results of remarkable technical 

 excellence. 



* * * * * 



The retirement of Sir Lazarus Eletcher, Knt., M.A., F.R.S., 

 Director of the Natural History Museum, marks the disappearance 

 from active service of the last of the four Keepers who under 

 Professor Owen represented this great section of the old British 

 Museum in Bloomsbury, and were responsible for the transfer of its 

 several collections in 1880 from Great Russell Street, W.C., to their 

 present home in Cromwell Road, South Kensington. Mr. Fletcher, 

 who, after a remarkably brilliant career as a student and mathe- 

 matician at the University of Oxford, entered the Museum as a 

 First-class Assistant in Mineralogy in March, 1878, succeeded 

 Professor Story Maskelyne as Keeper of Minerals in 1880, a post 

 which he held for twenty-nine years, being made Director of the 

 Museum in 1909, and retiring after ten years in the month of March. 

 During this long period of forty-one years Sir Lazarus Fletcher has 

 rendered important services to science and to the Museum; 

 amongst others may be specially mentioned the arrangement of 

 the entire Mineralogical Collection, and the preparation and 

 publication of a most admirable series of Guide-books, namely, an 

 Introduction to the Study of Meteorites, 1881 ; to Minerals, 1884; 

 to Rocks, 1895 ; and, still earlier, an Optical Indicatrix in 1872. 

 Numerous are the honours, medals, and awards which have been 

 conferred upon Sir Lazarus Fletcher, but notwithstanding he is 

 probably one of the most modest, reserved, and retiring scientific 

 men of eminence in London. 



* * * * * 



The Times ol March 13 last announced the appointment of Dr. Sidney 

 Frederick Harmer, F.R.S., as Director of the Natural Histoiy 

 Museum in place of Sir L. Fletcher. Dr. Harmer, who is the son of 



