238 OBITTJJLS.'Y". 



JOHN J. BIGSBY, M.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.R.G.S. 



Born Aug. 14th, 1792 ; Died Feb. 10th, 1881. 



Dr. J. J. BiGSBY was tbe son of J. Bigsby, Esq., M.D., Edinburgh. 

 He was born at Nottingham, on the 14th August, 1792, and early 

 followed the career of his father by entering the Medical Profession, 

 and shortly after taking his degree, he was appointed about 1818 

 as Medical Officer to a German Eifle Eegiment in the English Service 

 and ordered to Canada. Soon after his arrival he was sent by the 

 Governor to Hawkesbury Settlement, where there had been an out- 

 break of typhus fever. In the following year the more agreeable task 

 was assigned to him of travelling through Upper Canada to report 

 upon its Geology. A part of the collections he then made are still pre- 

 served in the British Museum, not the least interesting of which are 

 the curious siphuncles of Huronia Bigsbyi, from Drummond's Island, 

 Lake Huron. About the year 1822 he was appointed British 

 Secretary and Medical Officer to the Canadian Boundary Commission. 

 In 1823 he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of 

 London, to whose Transactions he had already been a contributor. 



Dr. Bigsby returned to England about 1827, and commenced to 

 practise as a medical man at Newark. In 1846 he came to reside in 

 the metropolis, and from that date identified himself with most of 

 the scientific societies in London. In 1850 he published the account 

 of his experience of life and travel in North America, under the 

 title of " Shoe and Canoe." 



His first scientific paper appeared in Silliman's American Journal 

 in 1820, and he contributed altogether about twenty-seven papers to 

 learned societies in London and elsewhere. His most important , 

 scientific work appeared in 1868, entitled "Thesaurus Siluricus," 

 being a list of all the fossils which occur in the Silurian formation 

 throughout the world. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society in the following year, and was awarded the Murchison 

 Medal in 1874 by the Council of the Geological Society. 



In 1878 he published his second catalogue, entitled " Thesaurus 

 Devonico-Carboniferus," and at the time of his death had far ad- 

 vanced towards the completion of his third volume, the " Thesaurus 

 Permianus." 



In 1876 he requested the Geological Society to accept, in trust, a sum 

 of money to provide a medal to be called the " Bigsby Medal," and to 

 be awarded biennially to some geologist not more than forty-five years 

 of age of any nationality ; Prof. Marsh, Prof. Cope, and Dr. Barrois 

 having been up to this time the three recipients. Dr. Bigsby died 

 at his residence, 89, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, at the good 

 old age of 89 years. 



PROFESSOR JAMES TENNANT, F.G.S., F.C.S., 



Born 1808; Died February 23rd, 1881. 

 During the earlier part of the present century the science of 

 Mineralogy had no more claim to be considered one of the exact 

 sciences than has Geology at the present day. To be able to 



