THE 



aEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE, 



NEW SERIES. DECADE V. VOL. IX. 



No. VIII.— AUGUST. 1912. 



I. — Eminent Living Geologists. 



Peofessoe John Milne, D.Sc, F.E.S., F.G.S., Hon. Fellow of King's 



College, London. 



(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE XVII.) 



IT falls to the lot of only a very few able men to take up some 

 neglected branch of science, and by their genius, their energetic 

 work, the discoveries they make, assisted by their personal charm and 

 bonhomie, to be able to attract general attention to their researches, 

 and so attain a great public success, filling with interest and 

 enthusiasm the intelligent, and attracting even the veriest tyro within 

 the circle of their investigation. Such has been the outcome of 

 the life-work of our friend and associate of many years, Professor 

 John Milne, whose untiring energy in the study of Seismology has 

 obtained for it now a foremost place in the physical sciences as having- 

 most important bearings on the economy of the globe and the very 

 existence of our race. 



, A Doctor of Science of Oxford University, an Honorary Fellow of 

 King's College, London, Professor of Mining and Geology in the 

 Imperial College, Japan (1875-95), and of Seismology in the University 

 of Tokyo ; decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun in 1895 by the 

 Emperor of Japan ; elected an F.G.S. in 1873 ; a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society (1887) ; awarded the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society 

 in 1894, and a Royal Medal by the Royal Society in 1908 — Professor 

 John Milne needs no introduction to our readers in order to commend 

 him to a place in this Magazine among " Eminent Living Geologists". 

 Born at Liverpool, December 30, 1850, he was the only son of his 

 father, John Milne, of Milnrow, and his mother, Emma Twycross, 

 daughter of James Twycross, of Wokingham. John Milne (the son) 

 was educated at a school in Rochdale, and at the Collegiate College, 

 Liverpool; thence he was entered at King's College, London, 

 and afterwards at the Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street. After 

 studying practical mining engineering in Cornwall and Lancashire, 

 he spent a short time at the Bergakademie Freiberg, and thence 

 visited the principal mining districts in Central Europe. On his 

 return to England he was selected by Mr. Cyrus Field, Sir James 

 Anderson, and others to report on the mineral resources of New- 

 foundland and Labrador, where he spent two years (Geol. Mag., 



1874, pp. 76-7). Thence he visited Funk Island, a small barren rock 



DECADE v. — A^OL. IX. — NO. VIII. 22 



