OUtnanj—J. Hopivood Blake, F.G.S. 239 



especial atteutiou to the Drifts, which before had only been 

 partially mapped. A few years ago he proceeded to Oxford, from 

 which important and interesting centre he laboured with much quiet 

 enthusiasm, until on March 5 he suddenly and quite unexpectedly 

 succumbed to angina pectoris at the age of 57. 



The record of his geological work is chiefly embodied in the 

 geological inaps of the districts he surveyed, and in sundry Survey 

 memoirs. He contributed notes to the Geology of East Somerset 

 (1876), to the Geology of Stowmarket (1881), the Geology of 

 Norwich (1881), and the Geology of London (1889) ; and he 

 personally wrote " The Geology of the Country around East 

 Dereham " (1888) and " The Geology of the Country near Yarmouth 

 and Lowestoft " (1890). He had also prepared, in conjunction with 

 Mr. Whitaker, a Memoir on the Water Supply of Berkshire, which 

 is in the press, and had made some progress with a Memoir on the 

 Geology of Reading. 



Mr. Blake's extra-official contributions to geological literature 

 were by no means large considering his long experience. In 1872 

 he contributed (with H. B. Woodward) •' Notes on the Eelations 

 of the Rhastic Beds to the Lower Lias and Keuper Formations in 

 Somersetshire" (Geological Magazine, Vol. IX, pp. 196-202). 

 In 1877 he published in the same Magazine (Deo. II, Vol. IV, 

 pp. 298-800) an article " On the Age of the Mammalian Rootlet-bed 

 at Kessingland " ; and in 1881 he contributed to the Proceedings of 

 the Norwich Geological Society (vol. i, pp. 126-128) a paper on 

 a " Well-boring at East Dereham Waterworks." To these may 

 be added his addresses to the Norwich Geological Society (of which 

 he was elected President in 1880-81), dealing with the Age and 

 Relation of the so-called ' Forest-Bed,' and with the Conservancy 

 of Rivers, Prevention of Floods, Drainage, and Water Supply ; and 

 also his Presidential Address to the Reading Literary and Philosophical 

 Society in 1885, when he discoursed on the Coalfields of the United 

 Kingdom with special reference to the Royal Commission on Coal. 

 From 1885 until near the close of his life he conducted a number 

 •of excursions of the Geologists' Association, on three occasions to 

 Reading, and on other occasions to Henley-on-Thames and Nettlebed, 

 Taplow and Bowsey Hill, Lowestoft and Kessingland, Goring, and 

 Silchester, reports of which were contributed to the Proceedings 

 of the Association. 



Mr. Blake's early training as an engineer had made him an 

 excellent draughtsman, so that his maps and the sections he con- 

 structed were models of neatness and precision. This training in 

 the exact methods of topographic surveys to some extent hampered 

 his field-work, as his constant aim to secure positive evidence for 

 geological boundaries led often to prolonged and inexpedient 

 investigation. Thus he would return again and again to obscure 

 tracts in the hopes of gaining exact information, a process theoretically 

 laudable, but practically detrimental to the progress of work. This 

 timidity in forming conclusions, perhaps to a certain extent con- 

 stitutional, had proved such a serious bar to official advancement, 



