1XX1V PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I904, 



Survey, and embodied in a map the observations made by the Survey 

 of the rock-striae and drumlins of Boulder-Drift. The data thus 

 supplied enabled Maxwell Close to discuss, in his clear logical 

 manner, the phenomena of ice-action in a small localized centre of 

 dispersion. 



Geologists are further indebted to him for his able advocacy of 

 the great extent of geological time, in opposition to the limitations 

 sought to be imposed by the physicists. In 1878 he presented 

 to the Dublin Meeting of the British Association a brief com- 

 munication on this subject, wherein he contended that some of 

 the physical arguments on which reliance had been placed were 

 unsatisfactory and inconclusive, and left geology still in possession 

 of ' her own strong and unrefuted arguments for the great extent of 

 geological time." He discussed the question at greater length in his 

 address as President of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland, in 

 February of the same year. In this suggestive essay he showed 

 his marked qualifications for dealing with scientific problems that 

 required mathematical and physical treatment. 



In 1878 Mr. Close was elected Treasurer of the Royal Irish 

 Academy, an office which he continued to fill with zeal and 

 efficiency, until he resigned it in March last. He took an active 

 interest in the Academy's business ; likewise in that of the Royal 

 Dublin Society. But it was the activity of a quiet retiring nature, 

 careless of self, and only concerned for the welfare of the institutions 

 themselves and of their individual members, as well as for the 

 advance of true science. He was elected a Fellow of our own 

 Society in 1874. He died on September 12th, 1903, respected by 

 all who ever met him and beloved by those who were privileged 

 with his friendship. 



William Henry Corfield, who became a Fellow of this Society 

 in 1866, was born on December 14th, 1843, and died on the 26th 

 of August last, in the sixtieth year of his age. He was educated 

 at the Cheltenham Grammar School and at Magdalen College, 

 Oxford, where he obtained a Demyship in Natural Science at the 

 early age of seventeen. In his youth he received a bent towards 

 geological pursuits, inasmuch as in 1863 he was chosen by Daubeny 

 to accompany him in an excursion to Auvergne. He obtained in 

 open competition the Medical Fellowship at Pembroke College, 

 Oxford, took first-class honours in the Natural-Science Schools with 

 chemistry and geology as special subjects, gained the Burdett-Coutts 



