574 Ohituarij—Rev. W. S. Symonds, M.A,, F.G.8. 



one day he may claim me as a thorough-going convert ; but at present 

 I anticipate that it will be my ultimate fate here, as in other things, 

 to maintain that truth lies between opposite extremes. 



As I am writing, I may as well briefly notice another criticism on 

 some work of mine in the south-west. In the Transactions of the 

 Devonshire Association a paper has recently appeared (p. 349), 

 advocating the old view of a gradual transition between the slaty 

 and the crystalline series in the Start and Bolt Head districts. As 

 the writer has " to confess to much ignorance as to the methods and 

 results of microscopic research," and the question is one in which 

 such methods are essential in order to distinguish real differences, 

 and avoid being misled by superficial resemblances, I cannot admit 

 that he is qualified to investigate the subject, or waste time by dis- 

 cussing it with him, and will only say, that, though since I wrote 

 the paper I have frequently examined my specimens and slides, I 

 have seen no reason to alter my opinion as to the separateness of the 

 two groups of rocks. Moreover, a paper will shortly appear in the 

 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, by a careful observer in 

 the field and worker with the microscope, in which much additional 

 evidence is brought forward in favour of my view. It would be 

 thought strange if any one were to enter into a dispute as to the 

 interpretation of a corrupt passage in a chorus of a tragedy of 

 j3Eschylus, without a preliminary study of the niceties of the Greek 

 language ; yet this is the course which some persons follow in 

 petrology, and seem to think that thereby they are doing a service to 

 science. T. G. Bonney. 



OBITTJ.A.S--Y". 



REV. W. S. SYMONDS, M.A., F.G.S. 



EoEN 1818; Died 1887. 



FoKTY years ago, the promotion of Natural Science throughout the 

 country was mainly entrusted to the agency of the various local 

 Field Clubs and Natural History Societies, amongst the most active 

 and useful of which may be mentioned the Malvern Natural History 

 Field Club, the VVoolhope Naturalists' Field Club, and the Cottes- 

 wold Club. It was in the districts over which these clubs held 

 sway that the subject of our present notice passed the best years of 

 his life and carried on those geological labours with which his name 

 will always stand associated. 



Mr. Symonds was born at Hereford in 1818, being the son of 

 William Symonds, Esq., of Elsdon, Herefordshire. After passing 

 through his school- da3-s with Mr. Allen at Cheltenham, and reading 

 with the Eev. J. P. Sill, he was sent to Christ's College, Cambridge, 

 where Sedgwick was then in the height of his popularity as a geological 

 lecturer. He took his degree in 1842, and in 1843 he was appointed 

 Curate of Offenham, near Evesham, where he became acquainted with 

 Mr. Hugh Strickland, from whom he received many of his first 

 lessons in Natural History. In 1845 he was presented to the 

 Eectory of Pendock, near Tewkesbury. 



