Eminent Living Geologists — Prof. Phillips. 305 



"I have given oi- applied names to 277 animal structures in the 

 palasozoic strata of the district under review, and in illustration of 

 these about 750 figures (including magnified parts) have been found 

 necessary." In 1842 Mr. Phillips had commenced a geological 

 survey of the Malvern Hills, and in 1849 he furnished the 

 Geological Survey, with an extensive and valuable memoir, " The 

 Malvern Hills compared with the Paleeozoic Districts of Abberley, 

 Woolhope, May Hill, Tortworth, and Usk," which may justly bo 

 regarded as one of his most masterly labours. Previously to this, 

 in 1840, Mr. Phillips resigned the charge of the York Museum, but 

 continued as Honorary Curator until 1844, in which year he was 

 appointed Professor of Geology in the University of Dublin. In 

 1845 he received from the Geological Society the Wollaston medal. 



In 1849 there had been some severe explosions of fire-damp, and 

 the great loss of life consequent on them compelled the Government 

 to institute an especial inquiry into the system of ventilation adopted 

 in our coal-mines. Prof. John Phillips and Mr. J. Kenyon Black- 

 well were appointed Commissioners to inquire into and report on this. 

 In 1850 these gentlemen made their reports, Prof. Phillips taking 

 the Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire Collieries ; Mr. J. K. 

 Black well dealing with the other parts of the kingdom. They 

 recommended a systematic inspection under Government authority, 

 and this recommendation being adopted, the colliery inspectors, now 

 numbering twelve, were appointed. 



In 1853, after the melancholy death of Mr. Strickland, who was 

 killed upon a railway immediately after the meeting of ihe British 

 Association at Hull, and who had performed the duties of the Chair 

 of Geology in the place of Dr. Buckland, Mr. Phillips accepted the 

 appointment to the vacant post, and, on the death of the Dean of 

 Westminster, he became his successor as Reader in Geology in the 

 University of Oxford. In 1859 Prof. Phillips was chosen President 

 of the Geological Society of London, and in May, 1860, he delivered 

 the Eede Lecture to the University of Cambridge, which was subse- 

 quently expanded into his popular work, "Life on the Earth, its 

 Origin and Succession." In this admirable contribution to the 

 literature of science, he vindicates the introduction of the idea of 

 definite government as an indispensable part of the data for argument 

 on the beginning and progress of life. " No one," he says, " who 

 has advanced so far in philosophy as to have thought of one thing in 

 relation to another, will ever be satisfied with laws which had no 

 author, works which had no maker, co-ordinations which had no 

 designer." 



The writings of Prof. Phillips are very numerous : his geological 

 communications exceed seventy in number, and there are more than 

 a dozen on other branches of study. Not only has Prof. Phillips 

 been most zealously employed in looking into the arcana of time, 

 but he has, amongst his later intellectual exercises, b'een searching 

 into the arcana of space. In 1853, at the Hull Meeting of the 

 British Association, Mr. Phillips exhibited some photographs of the 

 moon, and made a communication which was most suggestive, and 



