IXX PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



In November 1827, Mr. J. A. Lloyd, who had for some time 

 served in the personal staff of General Bolivar, was directed by 

 him to survey the Isthmus of Panama, for the purpose of deter- 

 mining the most eligible line of communication across it, whether by 

 road or canal. The result of this difficult operation of levelling 

 across the Isthmus, and the determination of the respective levels of 

 the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as also of the amount of elevation 

 of the Isthmus itself, were published in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions for 1830, and were considered highly creditable to the zeal and 

 ability of Mr. Lloyd. The notes of the collateral observations made 

 by Mr. Lloyd, on the geography and statistics of the region, were 

 communicated to the Geographical Society, and published in their 

 Transactions for 1832. Prior to this time he had been appointed 

 to a government situation in the Mauritius, but having again returned 

 home, he was appointed a special commissioner for the Exhibition of 

 1851, and in that capacity he brought forward his proposals for 

 establishing colleges of arts and manufactures for the better 

 instruction of the industrial classes, and instanced to Earl Gran- 

 ville, as models for such institutions, the * Conservatoire des Arts et 

 Metiers,^ of Paris, and the *Ecole des Arts et Metiers,' urging 

 with considerable force the advantage which society at large would 

 derive from the foundation of a museum of arts and industry for 

 the public instruction of the people. Having gone through the 

 historical details as well as those referring to the objects and routine 

 of instruction, proposed and followed by these two practical French 

 establishments, Mr. Lloyd impressed upon his Royal Highness 

 Prmce Albert and the Royal Commissioners the vast importance 

 of preventing the dispersion of the many works of nature and art 

 collected at the Exhibition, and of making them the nucleus of a great 

 national museum of practical science and art, and recommended 

 that the whole of the balance of the available funds derived from the 

 Exhibition of 1851 should be devoted to the endowment of a Col- 

 lege of Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures, of which the museum 

 should be an auxiliary establishment. With this college he pro- 

 posed that the Museum of Practical Geology, the Schools of Design, 

 and other insulated departments should be blended, and their pro- 

 fessors and teachers become its instruments for the diffusion of prac- 

 tical knowledge. These propositions have since made rapid advance 

 in their practical development. Mr. Lloyd was now appointed 

 Charge d' Affaires and Consul General to the Republic of Bolivia, 

 and returning to the scene of some of his former labours, he sent 

 home two reports on the country, which were submitted by the 

 Government to the Geographical Society. In the last of these 

 papers he described his arduous journey to the Cerro Pasco Coal- 

 field in Peru, which occurs at the height of 14,278 feet, and por- 

 trayed very graphically the primitive manners of the inhabitants of 

 this remote settlement, which is nearly isolated by its position from 

 the rest of the world. He was indeed an enterprising and energetic 

 man, possessed of considerable powers of observation, and, being an 

 able sketcher on horseback, was capable of effectually illustrating his 



