560 Obituary — R. F. Tomes. 



the Standing Joint Committee, on wliicli he remained until his 

 death in July of the present year. His knowledge of geology, 

 especially of the country around Evesham, enabled him to indicate 

 in the Cotteswold Hills places whence water was obtained for the 

 supply of thirteen or fourteen villages. His views met with con- 

 siderable opposition at first, but were, however, accepted without 

 question by the engineer, and the work was accomplished at 

 a modei'ate cost. 



In ]860 Mr. Tomes was made a Corresponding Member of the 

 Zoological Society of London, in recognition of the labour spent 

 and the excellent results obtained from the examination of the 

 Cheiroptera, and for his descriptions of many new species. His 

 fine collection of birds from the county of Worcester testify to 

 his taxidermic skill and knowledge of ornithology. 



About the year, however, that he was elected a Corresponding 

 Member of the Zoological Society, Mr. Tomes directed his attention 

 to geological mattei'S, opening the discussion as to the age of the 

 Sutton Stone and Lias conglomerates of Glamorganshire. The 

 subject was broached in 1863 on account of a Gryphcea having been 

 sent by Mr, Tomes to John Jones, of Gloucester, for the purpose 

 of figuring and describing in his paper " On GnjpJtcea inciirva and 

 its varieties" communicated to the Cotteswold Club; the strati- 

 graphical position of the fossil having been given by Mr. Tomes 

 as " White Lias of Bridgend, Glamorganshire." The fact that the 

 Gryph(sa was of great interest if it really occurred in what was 

 known as the " White Lias," was naturally appreciated by Jones, 

 but the fact was contested by Charles Moore, F.G.S., of Bath. 

 Moore denied that Ehastic beds were exposed in the Bridgend 

 cutting; but admitted that if the Gryplicea was associated with 

 Ostren intusstriata (Plicatula intusstriata) , then the evidence for 

 the Rhffitic age of the deposit was strong, as it was then generally 

 believed that Plicatula only occurred in the White Lias. Accordingly 

 it was agreed that Tomes, Moore, Kershaw, and Gibbs should 

 make a fresh examination of the section. Tomes discovered 

 the little Plicatula adhering to a lump of Mountain Limestone 

 firmly embedded in the Lias rock. Near the same horizon a large 

 specimen of Coroniceras Bucklandi was discovered by Moore. After 

 an examination, of the coast-section in the neighbourhood of Sutton 

 and a re-investigation of the Bridgend cutting (where a Gnjphcsa with 

 "no less than six small specimens of Ostrea intusstriata" adhering 

 was found), it was agreed that the species had a much more extended 

 range in time than had been hitherto thought, and therefore could 

 " no longer be looked upon as typical of White Lias." The matter 

 then appeared settled, for Mr. Tomes submitted that there was 

 but one explanation, and that was *' that during the period of the 

 deposition of the Eheetic beds no such deposition took place at the 

 locality in question [Bridgend]," an opinion he re-stated in 1877, 

 and added, '• the Ehtetic fauna of that period became in this manner 

 mixed up with that of the true Lias, which was subsequently 

 deposited." He held this opinion to the end, reiterating it in 1903 



