576 Obituary — Professor Harlmess, F.E.S., F.G.8. 



altered, and Prof. Harkness found himself no longer merely Professor 

 of Geology, but required to lecture on Physical Geography, Geology, 

 Mineralogy, Paleeontology, Zoology, and Botany ! He complied with 

 the new regulations for 1877 and 1878, but he was overworking 

 himself, and being warned by premonitory symptoms of heai't disease, 

 he resolved to resign his Chair at Cork, and rest quietly with his 

 sister in Penrith, where for some years he had made his home. This 

 he had done just previous to his last visit to Dublin in October which 

 proved fatal. 



One^ who was intimately acquainted with Professor Harkness 

 and his labours thus writes : — 



•' It is now some five-and-thirty years since the name of this able 

 geologist first appeared as a writer on his favourite science. During 

 this long period he had explored, on foot, the geology of large dis- 

 tricts in the north of England, in Scotland, and in various parts of 

 Ireland. The reports of the British Association and the Quarterly 

 Journal of the Geological Society bear witness to his industry and 

 to the painstaking minuteness of his method of investigation. To 

 him we owe our earliest exact information regarding the correlatives 

 of the reptiliferous sandstones of Dumfriesshire and Cumberland. 

 It was his patient labours continued year after year over ground 

 most difficult to unravel, that led the way to the working out of the 

 structure of the Silurian uplands of the south of Scotland. To his 

 research, too, is due the identification of the metamorphic rocks of 

 the north-west of Ireland with those of the west of Scotland. To 

 the elucidation of every one of the Paleeozoic system of deposits 

 he has contributed something of value. 



" But important as was his scientific work, it had not a wider and 

 more hearty recognition among his brother geologists than his own 

 admirable qualities of head and heart. Who that has been privi- 

 leged with his friendship will not cherish the memory of his 

 earnestness over even the driest of details, his quiet enthusiasm, his 

 generous admiration for the work of others, his unfailing cheerful- 

 ness ? Who will forget that beaming ruddy face, never absent from 

 the platform of Section C at the British Association meetings, 

 always ready to rise among the speakers there and to reappear at 

 the festive gatherings in the evening ? There have been men who 

 have graven their names more deeply on the registers of scientific 

 thought and progress, but there have been few whose sunny nature 

 has more endeared them in the recollection of their friends than 

 Eobert Harkness." 



Professor Harkness was the author of sixty-three papers, six of 

 which were joint productions (1) with Mr. John Blyth, (1) with 

 Edward W. Binney, E.E.S., (1) with Dr. Henry Hicks, (1) with 

 Sir Koderick I. Murchison, (2) with Prof. H. Alleyne Nicholson. 

 Eight of his papers have appeared in the pages of the Geological 

 Magazine, but they are for the most part in the Quarterly Journal 

 of the Geological Society and the Keports of the British Association. 



1 Professor A. Geikie, F.E.S., "Nature," Oct. 10, p. 628. 



