lxii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1 904, 



hesitation to Renard. He was likewise associated with Sir John 

 Murray in the investigation of the voluminous series of deposits 

 brought up from the bottoms of the various oceans traversed during 

 the course of that vessel's voyage round the world. Numerous 

 communications of singular novelty and importance continued to be 

 published, as the outcome of this conjoint study, for some twelve 

 years. At last, the results of the whole prolonged and laborious 

 research were summed up in full detail in the great monograph on 

 the c Deep-Sea Deposits,* which forms to the geologist, perhaps the 

 most valuable of all the massive quarto volumes of the Challenger- 

 Eeports. There can be no doubt that this work will become a 

 classic in the literature of Oceanography, and will be looked on as 

 practically the starting-point for all subsequent research on the 

 subject of which it treats. Every geologist is now familiar with 

 the more striking additions to our knowledge of the abysmal 

 sediments, made by these researches of Murray and Renard — the 

 detection and description of cosmic dust, which as a fine rain 

 slowly accumulates on the ocean-floor ; the development of zeolitic 

 crystals on the sea-bottom at temperatures of 32° and under; and 

 the distribution and mode of occurrence of manganiferous concretions 

 and of phosphatic and glauconitic deposits on the bed of the ocean. 



Renard was elected a Foreign Correspondent of this Society 

 in 1880, immediately after the commencement of the publication 

 of his contributions from the Challenger-stores. He became one 

 of our Foreign Members in l!>84. and in the following year he 

 received our Bigsby Medal. His close connection with the 

 Challeriger-woTk and those who conducted it in Scotland was 

 appropriately recorded by his election into the select number of the 

 Honorary Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 



From the time of his entering the priesthood he was everywhere 

 known as the Abbe Renard, and until not manv vears ago continued 

 to wear the clerical dress even in his visits to this country. When 

 he came to Scotland in the early years of his connection with the 

 Challenger-work, I saw much of him, and he now and then joined 

 me in a geological excursion, which one year we prolonged through 

 the Xorth- Western Highlands as far as Cape Wrath, where he passed 

 the night at the lighthouse-keepers, sitting on a wooden chair with 

 his arms and head resting on the table'.' On that and on other 

 occasions I had long talks with him on theological as well as 

 geological and other matters, and could see even then that his 

 views were much more liberal and advanced than might have been 



