240 Obituary— H. B. Medlicott. 



HENRY BENEDICT MEDLICOTT, M.A., F.R.S. 

 BoRX August 3, 1829. Died April 6, 1905. 



Mr. Medlicott was the second son of the Rev. Samuel Medlicott, 

 Eector of Loughrea, co. Galway, and was born in that parish. He 

 was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1851 he was 

 appointed to the Geological Survey in Ireland. In 1853 he was 

 transferred to the English branch of the Geological Survey, and 

 worked until the close of the year with Aveline in the Vale of 

 Pewsey and other parts of Wiltshire. Late in the same year he 

 was appointed on the staff of the Indian Geological Survey, and 

 commenced duties in 1854. During that year he was also chosen 

 Professor of Geology at the Thomason College of Engiiieering at 

 Eoorkee. Mr. Medlicott became Superintendent (and afterwards 

 Director) of the Geological Survey of India in 1876, and served in 

 that capacity until he retired in 1887. His geological work related 

 almost wholly to India and is published in the Memoirs and Eecords 

 of the Geological Survey of that country. 



In conjunction with Dr. W. T. Blanford he brought out in 

 1879 the well-known "Manual of the Geology of India," which 

 summarized all that was known of the country at that date. Other- 

 wise his published works are not numerous. He communicated in 

 1867 to the Geological Society of London a paper on " The Alps 

 and the Himalayas: a Geological Comparison" (Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc, vol. xxiv, pp. 34-52). He was author also of a work entitled 

 "Evolution of Mind in Man," 1892. 



In 1888, shortly after his retirement from the public service, h© 

 was awarded the Wollaston Medal by the Council of the Geological 

 Society. From this date he resided for the most part at Clifton,, 

 near Bristol, where he died at the age of 76. 



3yniSG:HlLIj.A.lNrEOTJS- 



ToRQUAY Natural History Society. — Mr. Alexander Somervail,. 

 the Curator of the Torquay Natural History Society, reports that 

 the following important addition has been made to the Museum 

 bv Mr. J. G. Hamling, F.G.S., of The Close, Barnstaple, who has 

 presented his valuable collection of Devonian and Culm fossils of 

 North Devon to the Society's Museum. The collection consists 

 of about a thousand specimens illustrative of these two geological 

 formations. It is in North Devon where the Devonian formation 

 is fully developed, its upper portion being almost absent in the 

 South. The upper division consists of the Pickwell, Baggy, and 

 Pilton groups, each characterised by its own distinctive fossil 

 remains. The Culm (or Carboniferous) formation is also more 

 fully represented in North Devon, and its fossils are more numerous 

 and varied. The whole collection will prove a most valuable 

 acquisition. 



