Minutes of Proceedings. 197 



Eobert Mallet, m.a., m. eng., ph. d., f.e.s., m.i.c.e., f.g.s., and 

 Honorary and Corresponding Member of various foreign societies, was 

 born June 3, 1810, and died JSTovember 5, 1881. He was co -partner with, 

 his father, Mr. John Mallet, in the Yictoria Poundry and Engineering 

 "Works, Dublin. Even from his boyhood he displayed a great interest 

 in physical science, and when he became and continued to be actively 

 engaged in the practice of his profession of civil engineer, he never 

 remitted his attention to the more purely scientific consideration and 

 investigation of the physical agencies and principles with which 

 he was brought into contact. He entered Trinity College in 1826, 

 and graduated in Arts in 1830. He was elected Member of the 

 Academy in 1832, and made his first contribution to the Academy's 

 Transactions in 1837. He became Member of the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers in Ireland in 1836 ; and contributed numerous 

 technical Papers to the Transactions of the Institution, of which, 

 he was made President in the years 1866-1867. The first of his 

 important Papers on Physical Geology was presented in 1838 to 

 the Geological Society of Dublin, the Presidency of which he held 

 in the years 1847-1848, and in whose Journal he published many 

 geological Papers. In 1839 he was elected Associate, and in 1842 

 Member, of the Institution of Civil Engineers of England (to whose 

 Transactions he contributed various Papers) ; he was awarded by that 

 Body, in 1841, a silver medal and premium for a communication on 

 the Corrosion of Cast and Wrought Iron in "Water, and in 1859 the 

 Telford Medal for his investigation of the Co-eificients of Elasticity 

 and Eupture in "Wrought Iron. He was elected Eellow of the Eoyal 

 Society of London in 1854, and of the Geological Society of London 

 in 1859, and sat on the Council of both societies. 



We cannot here do more than merely allude to the many important 

 engineering works carried out by him, and the numerous inventions 

 due to him, especially in the construction of artillery, his numerous 

 Papers on which subject must not be passed over without reference. 

 The department of physical geology to which Mallet more especially 

 directed his attention was that of the phenomena and theory of 

 earthquakes and volcanic action, for the discussion of which his 

 training and practice as an engineer rendered him peculiarly well 

 qualified. It is in connexion with this that his name will be 

 principally remembered by men of science. The first of his Papers 



