480 Obituary — James Yates. 



James Yates, F.E.S., F.G-.S., &c. — With regret we record the loss 

 of this amiable and learned man of science. James Yates was born at 

 Liverpool in 1789. He studied at Edinburgh and Glasgow, taking 

 his M.A. in 1812. The early years of his active life were devoted to 

 the ministry in connexion with the Unitarian Church, first at 

 Glasgow, then at Birmingham, and finally at London. Having re- 

 tired from the ministry, he devoted himself to scientific and literary 

 pursuits. He was elected a member of the Geological Society in 

 1819, of the Linneean in 1822, and of the Eoyal in 1839. He was 

 one of the founders of the British Association, and took an active 

 part in its early management. In later years he specially devoted 

 his attention to the question of a uniform international system of 

 decimal coins, weights, and measures. This subject, together with 

 the arranging and annotating the Canton Papers for the Eoyal Society, 

 engaged his thoughts up to the time of his death. His first paper 

 was published in the original series of the Geological Transactions in 

 1821. It was devoted to a description of an argillaceous limestone 

 from Staffordshire. This was followed by others treating of petro- 

 logical, stratigraphical, and paleeontological questions. He early 

 devoted attention to the remarkable Oolitic Cycads of Yorkshire ; and 

 submitted to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society a restoration of 

 their numerous though fragmentary remains, which was the first 

 attempt at a scientific estimate of their relations to known structures. 

 He was specially fitted to deal with these fossils, from his extensive 

 acquaintance with the living Cycads. In his Palm House, at High- 

 gate, he had collected the largest series of living Cycads that have 

 ever belonged to a private individual, or that have been brought 

 together, perhaps, in any public institution. Considering the im- 

 portant part which the Cycads have played in the Secondary Floras 

 of Britain, few sights in the neighbourhood of London were more 

 instructive to the geologist than Mr. Yates's Cycadcce, which were 

 always open to every inquirer. Indeed, Mr. Yates seemed to realize 

 that his collections were performing their highest functions and 

 amply repaying all his trouble and labour when they were made the 

 means of suj)plying information to scientific men. He made exten- 

 sive notes on his specimens, and when chance gave him a dead plant 

 or a fruit, he carefully dissected it. Some of these valuable observa- 

 tions have been published in the Linncean Journal and the Gardener'' s 

 Chronicle. His botanical manuscripts, and his collection of dried 

 foliage and fruits of Cycade^e he presented some years ago to the 

 Botanical Department of the British Museum. Miquel dedicated a 

 species of Zamia to him, and Mr. Carruthers gave his name to a 

 genus of fossil Cycads, the type of which was published in the Fourth 

 Volume of this Magazine, Plate IX., under the name Cycadoidea 

 Yatesii, being now Yatesia Morrisii. James Yates died at Lauderdale 

 House, Highgate, on the 7th of May, 1871, at the age of 82. He 

 has left a handsome bequest to the Geological Society, which will 

 long j)reserve his memory among the members of that Society. A 

 large circle will not soon forget the extensive learning, the thorough 

 integrity, and the unvaried urbanity which characterized their de- 

 parted friend. W. 0. 



