Obituarij—Rev. J. D. La Touche. 235 



thicker in that district than has hitherto been supposed. Tt must 

 be remembered that the fossils are phosphatic, and the section 

 exposed when I was there in 1884 showed that they lay in a seam 

 of phosphatic nodules; hence some of them may have been derived 

 from a lower horizon, but the occurrence of S. rostrata and S. varicosa 

 within 20 feet of the base of the Gault remains to be explained. 



A. J. Jukes-Browne. 

 Torquay, April 10, 1899. 



OBITTJ-A-IS-^r. 



JAMES DIGUES LA TOUCHE, B.A. 



Born April 7, 1824. Died February 24, 1899. 



Some five and forty years ago the Eev. James Digues La Touche of 

 Stokesay, with Humphrey Salwey and Robert Lightbody of Ludlow, 

 formed a trio of ardent students of the geology of South Shropshire. 

 Surviving his fellow-workers for more than twenty years, the late 

 Yicar of Stokesay is the best known to the present generation of 

 geologists, and moreover, while all were equally willing to impart 

 to others their intimate knowledge of the geology of their neighbour- 

 hood, he did not share his friends' reluctance to commit to writing 

 the information which they acquired. 



In his earlier geological papers he attacked two problems of 

 considerable difficulty, one being the changes which sedimentary 

 rocks undergo after their deposition and consolidation, and the other 

 the amount of sediment brought down by rivers as a measure of the 

 extent of denudation of the land. While we may not fully accept his 

 original views on the " Mode of Formation of Limestone Bands " 

 (Geologist, 1863), it is probable that "Nodules in the Limestone 

 of Wenlock Edge" (Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1865) and "Spheroidal 

 Structure in Silurian Eocks " (Journ. Geol. Soc. Ireland, 1871) 

 have been formed in the way which he suggests, so that his first 

 paper merel}'^ carries his theory a little too far. The difficulties 

 encountered in the study of the "Alluvial Deposits of Rivers" 

 (Trans. Woolhope Field Club, 1868) and the " Measurement of River- 

 sediments" (Geol. Mag., 1868) are of quite another kind, being 

 chiefly manipulative, and it seems a pity that the very careful and 

 well thought-out experiments which he made to form an "Estimate 

 of the Quantity of Sedimentary Deposit in the Onny " (Brit. Assoc. 

 Rep., 1869) should have terminated with his " Report on the 

 Sedimentary Deposits of the River Onny " presented to the British 

 Association in 1870, and published as one of the "Reports on the 

 State of Science " in the volume for that year. His papers in the 

 Transactions of the Woolhope Field Club on the "Geology of the 

 District around the Titterstone Clee Hill " (1868) and on tho 

 "Geology of the Longmynd Hills" (1870) should be read by all 

 who wish to study these interesting districts. 



His principal work, however, is " A Handbook of the Geology of 

 Shropshire," published in 1884. (4to, London and Shrewsbury). 



