46 Obituary — Sir Robert Stawell Ball. 



apophyllite in three types, square, tabular, and pyramidal ; pyrrhotite 

 in thin hexagonal plates ; tourmaline in black, brown, green, blue, 

 and pink crystals, sometimes zoned; garnet in colourless cubo- 

 dodecahedra and trapezohedra, sometimes including wollastonite 

 hairs ; wollastonite abundantly in pure - white fibrous masses. — 

 J. B. Scrivenor : On a Calcium-iron-garnet from China. It is 

 interesting on account of its unusually easy solubility in hydrochloric 

 , acid without ignition. 



III. — Zoological Society of London-. 



November 25, 1913.— Professor E. W. MacBride, M.A., D.Sc, F.K.S., 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Mr. T. H. Withers, F.G.S., contributed a paper, communicated by 

 Dr. W. T. Caiman, F.Z.S., based upon a large series of Cirripede 

 remains from the Cenomanian Chalk Marl in the neighbourhood of 

 Carabri.dge. The greater number of the specimens are referred to two 

 species of the family Pollicipedidae, and add materially to our know- 

 ledge of the phylogeny of the pedunculated Cirripedes. Both forms 

 are remarkable for their advanced form of scutum, in which the umbo 

 is sub- central, and show that the transition of the scutal umbo from 

 an apical to a sub -central position was acquired independently by 

 unrelated forms in distinct lines of development. 



OBITTJ.A.E.-3r_ 



SIR ROBERT STAWELL BALL, LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.A.S. 



Born July 1, 1840. Died Novembek 25, 1913. 



Sir Robert Ball was born in Dublin and was the son of 

 Dr. Robert Ball, an ardent naturalist and Director of the Museum 

 in Trinity College. After graduating as University student 

 in Mathematics in that college, Robert Ball (the younger) was 

 appointed Astronomer to the 3rd Earl of Rosse at Parsonstown 

 in King's County. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1873, and eventually became Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and 

 Geometry in the IJniversity of Cambridge and Director of the 

 Cambridge Observatory. To geologists he was known chiefly as 

 the author of a small volume on The Cause of an Ice Age (1891), 

 a work reviewed by the Rev. Osmond Fisher (Geol. Mag., 1892, 

 p. 231). He described it as containing " a very clear and agreeably 

 written exposition of the commonly received Astronomical theory of 

 Glacial periods", as adding " fresh force to Dr. CroU's hypothesis", 

 but as "rather too triumphant" from the geologist's point of view. 

 Since then CroU's hypothesis lias been practically demolished by 

 Mr. E. P. Culverwell in the pages of this Magazine (1895) and the 

 Astronomical theory of the Ice Age has been abandoned. Sir Robert 

 Ball was likewise author of a work entitled The EarWs Beginning 

 (1901). 



