OBITUARY. 
Sir Lazarus Fletcher, Kt., M.A., F.R.S., ete. 
BoRN MARCH 3, 1854. DIED JANUARY 6, 1921. 
By the death of Sir Lazarus Fletcher, of heart-failure, at Grange- 
over-Sands, Lancashire, on January 6, mineralogical science has lost 
one of its ablest exponents. The famous series of Introductions to 
the Study of Meteorites, Minerals, and Rocks respectively, which he 
prepared at intervals after he became Keeper of the Mineral Depart- 
ment in the British Museum, have been the most efficient means for 
bringing the elementary principles of the science before the public, 
while for advanced students his treatise on double refraction, 
The Optical Indicatrix and the Transmission of Light in Crystals, 
has revolutionized the teaching of physical optics. Although he has 
thus been, and will continue to be as long as these guide-books are 
published, the means of arousing an interest in minerals in others, it 
may be said of him, as of many other mineralogists, that he was a 
mathematician first and a mineralogist afterwards. In order to 
appreciate fully the beauty, variety of form, and mutual relations of 
minerals, some knowledge ‘of mathematics, physics, and chemistry 
is essential. Fletcher’s distinguished career at school and college 
gave him to perfection this preliminary training, and it was not until 
after he had taken his degree at Oxford that he was first led to the 
study of crystals and thence was attracted to minerals. 
Sir Lazarus Fletcher was born at Salford, Manchester, on March 3, 
1854. At the age of eleven he entered the Manchester Grammar 
School, and during the next four years displayed such brilliance as 
a scholar that, instead of being launched upon a business career 
in that commercial centre as contemplated by his father, he was 
allowed, by the advice of the headmaster, to continue his studies, 
with the result that at the early age of seventeen he obtained a 
Brackenbury Science Scholarship at Balliol. His career at Oxford 
was signalized by first classes in mathematical Moderations and in 
the final schools of mathematics and natural science. After taking 
his degree he became demonstrator in physics to Professor Clifton 
in the Clarendon Laboratory, and Millard lecturer in physics at 
Trinity College, and was made a Fellow of University College. His 
work in the Clarendon Laboratory attracted the notice of Story 
Maskelyne, who at that time was acting both as Professor of 
Mineralogy at Oxford and as Keeper of the Mineral Department 
of the ‘British Museum in London; and in 1880 Fletcher, after 
serving two years as assistant, on Maskelyne’s retirement became the 
Keeper of the Department. It was at first a troublous heritage to 
which he had succeeded, for almost immediately he was confronted 
with the formidable task of removing the mineral collections from 
