140 Ohituanj — Searles V. Wood, the Younger. 



previously placed in the library at Burlington House a manuscript 

 work of great length on the same Bul)ject. 



While engaged in the Survey of Norfolk, Messrs. Wood and 

 Harmer had come across a band of fossiliferous sand in the Middle 

 Glacial deposits near Yarmouth, full of comminuted shells, which 

 were in such a fragmentary condition that few species could be 

 determined. Although presenting so much difficulty, the discovery 

 appeared to Mr. Wood so important that he had about two tons of 

 the material sent over to Brentwood, where he then lived, and spent 

 whole weeks in sifting and examining it. The result was the 

 determination of seventy species of Mollusca, several of them being 

 new to science, the whole fauna showing a much older facies than 

 that of the so-called Middle Sands of Lancashire, which had been 

 up to that time regarded as contemporaneous with them. 



In 1871 and the following years Mr. Wood continued to write 

 many papers. In 1880 and 1882 he published his last essay on 

 what he preferred to call the "Newer Pliocene Period." Although 

 the best work of his life must no doubt be regarded as that which 

 he devoted to tracing the history of the younger formations of the 

 East of England, yet he nevertheless took the keenest interest in the 

 Glacial and later Tertiary phenomena of other parts of the globe, 

 and in 1877 he published his views on the subject at considerable 

 length in the Geological Magazine. He was meditating a further 

 treatise thereon at the time of his death, although a confirmed 

 invalid, and often racked with pain. The last work in which he 

 engaged was a paper on "The Discovery of the Fossiliferous Beds of 

 St. Erth, in Cornwall," which was read at the Geological Society. 

 His industry was untiring, and considering his feeble health 

 marvellous. Always ready to admit himself in error when the 

 discovery of new facts required it, with a single-hearted desire to 

 ascertain the truth, he was ever willing to place at the disposal of 

 others the knowledge he himself possessed. On the death of his 

 father he was chosen Treasurer of the Palgeontographical Society, 

 which office he held until the last. He died on the 14th December, 

 after a few days' illness, at his residence, Beacon Hill House, near 

 Woodbridge, and was buried at Melton Church, in the centre of the 

 district which the labours of his father and himself have made for all 

 time classical ground to students of geology. 



The following is a List of Mr. Wood's Papers : — 



On the Probable Events which succeeded the Close of the Cretaceous Period. Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc. 1860, vol. xvi. pp. 328-329. 



On the Form and Distribution of the Land-Tracts during the Secondary and Ter- 

 tiary Periods respectively ; and on the effects upon Animal Life which great 

 Changes in Geographical Conliguration have probably produced. Phil. Mag. 

 1862, vol. xxiii. pp. 161-171, 269-282, 382-393. 



On the Events which Produced and Terminated the Pnrbeck and Wealden Deposits 

 of England and France, and on the Geographical Conditions of the Basin in 

 which they were Accumulated. Phil. Mag. 1863, vol. xxv. pp. 268 -269. 



On the Red Crag and its relation to the Fluvio-marine Crag, and on the Drift of 

 the Eastern Counties. Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1864, ser. 3, vol. xiii. pp. 

 185-203. 



On the Belgian Equivalents to the Upper and Lower Drift of the Eastern Counties. 

 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1864, vol. xiii. pp. 393-405. 



