b6 Canadian Record of Science. 



The Late Dr. William B. Carpenter. 



Science has experienced a severe loss in the recent 

 lamented decease of Dr. Carpenter, for though he had at- 

 tained an age when most men seek repose, he was still 

 actively employed in scientific and philanthropic work, and 

 might have done much more had his life been prolonged. 

 Dr. Carpenter, with the acumen and thoroughness of a 

 scientific specialist, combined a rare breadth of view and 

 comprehension, and a wonderful facility for the clear ex- 

 pression of facts and principles as a teacher and popular 

 writer. He was withal a man of large sympathies, and 

 ready at any time to bear his part in any work of social, 

 sanitary, or educational amelioration. As a physiologist 

 and microscopist he had no superior ; and no English man 

 of science has done more in making his subjects of study 

 popular and generally useful. His visit to Canada in -the 

 summer of 1882, the part which he took at that time in the 

 meeting of the American Association in Montreal, and the 

 admirable popular lecture which he delivered on the phy- 

 sical features of the Ocean, have made him personally known 

 to many in this country, where he had long been esteemed 

 as a writer. He entered heartily into the study of Eozoon 

 canadense, when that fossil was discovered by Sir W. E. 

 Logan; and the preparatory work, which had been done in 

 its microscopic study by Sir Wra. Dawson in this country, 

 was, by his request, submitted before publication to Dr. Car- 

 penter as the most eminent specialist in the structures of 

 Foi-aminifera. Dr. Carpenter, when in Canada, visited one 

 of the most instructive localities of Eozoon, and had in coui*se 

 of preparation an exhaustive memoir on the subject, for 

 which he had accumulated a large number of specimens 

 illustrating the various forms and structures of this much 

 disputed organism. 



Dr. Carpenter was born at Exeter in 1813, and was the 

 son of Dr. Lant Carpenter, an eminent Unitarian minister 

 of Bristol, to which city he removed in Dr. Carpenter's in- 

 fancy. He was the brother of Miss Mary Carpenter, So 

 well-known as a philanthropist, and of Dr. Philip P. Car- 



