26 IN MEMORIAM : WILLIAM CRAWFORD WILLIAMSON, LL.D., F.R.S. 



trade and liking, he was a great lover of plants, a keen observer of 

 animals, and appears 10 have been, one may almost say, a born 

 geologist. The subject of our memoir, therefore, was by inheritance 

 a lover of nature and of a scientific turn of mind. 



John Williamson had several friends like-minded with himself, 

 and his house was often visited by William Smith (the father of 

 English geology) and his talented nephew, John Phillips, the 

 renowned author of the ' Geology of Yorkshire ' ; by William Bean, 

 the indefatigable marine zoologist and geologist; the Rev. George 

 Young, of Whitby ; and John Bird, the artist for Young and Bird's 

 well-known work on the Yorkshire coast. Nor can we doubt that 

 the conversation of these and many other scientific visitors would be 

 eagerly listened to and pondered by the young naturalist and tend to 

 kindle the sacred fire of science which afterwards burned in him so 

 brightly. In his physical surroundings, too, was our subject favour- 

 ably placed, for where in the wide world can a tyro in geology find 

 a more glorious succession of rocks so abounding in beautiful and 

 instructive fossil remains as are exposed in the magnificent cliffs of 

 the Yorkshire coast, ranging from Bridlington in the south to 

 Saltburn in the north, and including nearly the whole of the 

 mesozoic rocks in almost unbroken series, capped by the interesting 

 glacial and drift deposits of a later age? 



This variety of rock succession is accompanied with very varied 

 inland scenery — marsh, river-bank, pool, glen, wood, moorland, sandy 

 shore, and barren upland presenting feeding-ground and shelter for 

 a great variety of plant and animal life ; and no mean part of the 

 early education of our friend was derived from the hunting for these 

 specimens, their dissection, preparation for the museum, and the 

 careful study of them in the field and in the laboratory. 



In 1829 a Literary and Philosophical Society was formed in 

 Scarborough, and the Museum was built to which John Williamson 

 was appointed keeper, when his collections were purchased for the 

 sum of ;£75> of which, however, he generously returned £2$ as his 

 personal contribution. In this environment, then, was laid the 

 foundation of that plentiful harvest which Dr. Williamson so nobly 

 produced in after years. 



In April, 1832, finding that scientific pursuits, however delightful 

 did not furnish a satisfactory livelihood, he apprenticed himself to 

 Mr. Thomas Weddel, surgeon, of Scarborough, with whom he 

 remained until his removal to Manchester in 1835. 



The publication in 1833 of the researches of Witham on the 

 minute structure of Carboniferous plants by means of thin sections, 

 no doubt proved a stimulus to those researches of his which after- 



Naturalist, 



