526 Obituary — Dr. R. N. Ruhidge. 



foot six inches, lying upon the Carboniferous strata. Farther re- 

 searches this summer have fully confirmed my first impression, that 

 the shell-bed lies below the lower Boulder-clay. The country around 

 Kilmarnock is largely perforated with pits, and good opportunity is 

 afforded for observing the surface-beds. In none of these pits has 

 Boulder-clay been found underlying the sand and peaty beds. The 

 sand bed is very irregularly developed, being as thick as thirty feet 

 in one pit, and in others ten feet, twenty feet, and so on. The peaty 

 bed is apparently the remains of an older bed, most likely of estuarine 

 (?) formation, being found in patches, often at considerable distances 

 apart, remnants no doubt of a larger bed that has suffered by denu- 

 dation. The discovery of these shells throws light upon the former 

 discoveries at Kilmaurs, and gives the true horizon of the bed where 

 the elephants' tusks and horns of the reindeer were found. 



E. Ckaig. 

 Langside Beith, 



October 1th, 1869. 



Sib, — Will you kindly give publicity to a work which is now in 

 progress, viz. Murray's Handbook to the Geology of England and 

 Wales ; and allow me to appeal, through the medium of the Geolo- 

 gical Magazine, to all brothers of the hammer for assistance and 

 contributions, particularly in local geology, which will be most 

 gratefully acknowledged. 



Phillips Bevan, F.G.S., Editor. 



4, Suffolk. Square, Cheltenham, Oct. 21, 1869. 



OBITTJ.A.I^■Z■. 



Db. E. N. Eubidge. — We receive from Port Elizabeth the pain- 

 ful intelligence of the sudden death (on the 8th August), of E. N. 

 Eubidge, Esq., M.B. Lond., F.G.S., etc., who was well-known as an 

 enthusiastic labourer in the geology of South Africa. Beginning 

 his medical studies under Dr. John Atherstone, of Port Elizabeth, 

 his habit of accurate observation was acquired and fostered in com- 

 pany with his fellow pupil and friend, Dr. W. G. Atherstone, of that 

 town, also known as an ardent and successful geological explorer of 

 South Africa, sometime in company with the late Mr. A. G. Bain, 

 who first worked out and mapped the geology of that region. 



In 1854 Dr. Eubidge was requested by the merchants of Port 

 Elizabeth to visit and report upon the newly discovered gold-dig- 

 gings near Smithfield, in the Orange Eiver Sovereignty. In com- 

 pany with Mr. Paterson he made a careful examination of the spot, 

 and found that gold in small quantities was associated with quartz 

 in the meridional set of trap-dykes there intersecting the Dicynodon 

 or Karoo beds. In his clear and concise communication of these 

 results to the Geological Society of London (Quart. Joum., vol. xi., 

 p. 1, etc.), Dr. Eubidge mentions a fact that may be of interest in 

 connection with the possible origin of the diamonds that have of late 



