88 Obituary — Professor Ralph Tate. 



at the Philosophical Institution, his principal subjects of interest 

 being Botany, non-marine Conchology, and Geology, particularly 

 the palseontological side of it. His first proceeding was to found 

 the Belfast Naturalists Field Club, which is still in vigorous 

 operation, and he also drew up a Flora of Belfast and, at a later 

 date, a descriptive list of Irish Liassic Fossils, including several new 

 species. An earlier paper on an allied subject contributed in 1864 

 to the Geological Society was followed by his removal to London as 

 Assistant-Curator to the Society, the results of which appointment 

 may be seen in the admirable condition as to naming, etc., of the 

 specimens in the Society's Museum which came under his hand. 

 Whilst in this position he contributed three papers to the Quarterly 

 Journal — on the Cretaceous Eocks of the North-East of Ireland, on 

 the Zone of Ammonites angiilatus, and on the South African Fossils 

 in the Museum — all highly palgeontological. He was also at work in 

 the other branches of Natural History which interested him, writing 

 three Botanical papers in 1866 and a small textbook on Land and 

 Fresh- water Mollusca. These various branches were so well 

 handled that Lyell and Huxley amongst geologists, Gwyn Jeffreys 

 amongst conchologists, and Hooker, Baker, and Carruthers amongst 

 botanists nominated him as Associate of the Linnean Society 

 in 1866. 



In 1867 he was sent by the Central America Association on an 

 exploring expedition to Nicaragua, and in the following year to 

 Guyana in Venezuela, expeditions which resulted in papers to the 

 Geological Society on the geology, and to the American Journal of 

 Conchology on the non-marine Mollusca of those countries. In the 

 interval and afterwards he conducted classes at the Mining School 

 at Bristol, and also brought out his well-known Appendix to 

 Woodward's Manual of Mollusca, and an admirable little class-book 

 of geology forming two volumes of Weale's Eudimentary Series ; 

 at the same time he was communicating a series of Jurassic papers 

 (four) to the Geological Society. In 1871 he was appointed teacher 

 to the Mining School established by the Cleveland Ironmasters, first 

 at Darlington and then at Eedcar. His attention was thus drawn 

 to Yorkshire, and ultimately led to his bringing out (in conjunction 

 with the writer of this notice) his well-known work " The 

 Yorkshire Lias." 



About this time, however (1875), a complete change occurred in 

 his life on his appointment as Professor of Natural Science on the 

 Elder Foundation at the University of South Australia in Adelaide. 

 To the work thus opened before him he henceforth devoted all his 

 energies. He found there a Philosophical Society issuing no 

 proceedings and studying science chiefly at second-hand. This 

 Society he determined to raise to a high position by commencing 

 a series of Transactions, and publishing in them his papers on the 

 Geology and Natural History of the Colony, instead of sending them 

 to better known and more widely circulating journals, and by 

 persuading others to do the same. For three years he piloted this 

 Society, first as Vice-President and constant Chairman (1877-8), 



