oer 1 iioo 



THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. VI. 



No. X.— OCTOBER, 1899. 



0:E?,XC3-IlNrJ^Ij J^I^TIGLES. 



I. — Eminent Living Geologists : Henry H. Howell, F.G.S., 

 formerly Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 



(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE XXI.) 



AFTER a term of work extending over nearly half a century, 

 Mr. Howell, the Director of the Geological Survey of Great 

 Britain, has retired from the public service. 



It is not oFten that a man who has only just reached the 

 age-limit of 65 is able to look back on such a lengthened period 

 of official work. No member of the Geological Survey has before 

 attained such a record. Even Mr. Selwyn, whose portrait we gave 

 in our February Number, had reached the age of 70 when he had 

 nearly completed his fiftieth year of work on the Geological Surveys 

 of Great Britain, Victoria, and Canada. 



Henry Hyatt Howell was born on the 13th July, 1834, at 

 Prinknash Park, Gloucestershire. He was the fifth son of Thomas 

 Jones Howell, Esq., sometime Judge Advocate at Gibraltar, and 

 Editor of the " State Trials." He was educated partly at the 

 College School, Gloucester, and afterwards in the "Applied Science" 

 Department at King's College, Loudon, where at the time David 

 Thomas Ansted, M.A., Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, was 

 Professor of Geology, 



In the spring-time of 1850, with an introduction from Colonel 

 James, R.E. (afterwards Sir Henry James, and Director- General of 

 the Ordnance Survey), he was attached (unpaid) to the surveying 

 division of the Sappers and Miners then engaged at Wakefield, in 

 Yorkshire, Captain Tucker, R.E., being in charge of that district. 

 This survey was for the completion of the Onlnance Maps of the 

 Six Northern Counties of England on the six-inch scale. 



In the summer of the same year, with Lieutenant Cameron, R.E. 

 (afterwards Director-General of the Ordnance Survey), he was 

 attached to the surveying division then engaged in measuring the 

 base line on Salisbury Plain with compensation bars. 



Later on, in September of the same year, with a letter of intro- 

 duction from Colonel James, he was permitted to join Prof. Ramsay, 



DECADE IV. VOL. VI. NO. X. 28 



