Obituary, ^^ 



♦ 



Fkedebiok J. Foot, M.A., F.E.G.S.L, Member Nat. Hist. Society 

 Dub., C.E. G-eological Survey of Great Britain, has been suddenly 

 removed from amongst us by a melancholy accident in the early 

 prime of life. 



On the evening of January 17th, a number of people were skating 

 upon the ice of Lough Kay, near Boyle, in Ireland Two of them 

 having ventured upon a weak portion of the ice, it gave way, and 

 they fell into the lake. Seeing their extreme danger, Mr. Foot came 

 to their assistance, and in a noble effort to save their lives lost his own. 

 They were both rescued, but he was drowned. 



Mr. Foot was educated in Ireland, and having taken his degree 

 and passed through the Engineering School at Trinity College, 

 Dublin, where Geology forms part of the course, he became attached 

 to this science, and was appointed by the late Sir H. T. de la Beche on 

 the 1st of August, 1856, an Assistant Geologist to the Irish Branch 

 of the Geological Survey. Although from this date engaged in the 

 minute examination and active physical labour connected with his 

 duties on the Survey, he found time to furnish a number of botanical 

 and other communications to the Natural History Society of Dublin, 

 and several others upon Geological subjects to the British Associa- 

 tion, the Eoyal Geological Society of Ireland, the pages of the 

 Geologist, and other periodicals. 



Amongst the latter he recorded his discovery of an interesting 

 group of Trappean rocks, at the Horses Glen, near Killarney, in a 

 paper to the Geological Society of Dublin, in June, 1856. He de- 

 scribed the Geology of the neighbourhood of Tralee to the Geological 

 Section of the British Association at Dublin in the summer of 1857. 

 Noticed some new localities for Posidonomya, near Ennis, in a short 

 paper to the Geological Society, Dublin, January, 1859 ; and in 

 another paper, " On a Eecent Erratic Block," read before the same 

 Society, in November, 1864 ; called attention to the recent transport 

 of a block of limestone, two tons in weight, from a distance of fifty 

 yards — floated by the ice of a severe winter, some years ago, from its 

 bed in the Shannon to shallower water near the shore. 



In June, 1863, he obtained from beneath a bog in the County of 

 Longford the indented bones and horns of Cervus megaceros, which 

 furnished the subject of a paper by Professor Jukes, read before the 

 same Society, in December of the same year ; and gave rise to much 

 interesting discussion and ingenious speculation as to the cause of 

 their being marked and indented. 



During the meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, in 

 1862, Mr. Foot read a paper, " On the Geology of the Burren in 

 County Clare," and also exhibited and described a botanical chart of 

 that district. 



In connexion with his employment on the Survey, he contributed 



