1901-1902.] 33 



whose subsequent history I am unable to trace, wrote to the 

 Northern Wing explaining the working of Naturalists' Field 

 Clubs, and urging the formation of one in this town. This 

 was taken up at once by some of the geology class, who called 

 on Mr. Chew, and arranged with him for a meeting with their 

 teacher. Mr. Tate drew up an outline of the organisation, a 

 meeting was summoned, many names were secured as a 

 start, then an inaugural meeting was held, a code of 

 rules adopted, officers elected, and thus was launched the 

 organisation which has called us here to-night, after a 

 most successful career of almost thirty-eight years. Mr. 

 Tate was a native of Alnwick, and was descended from 

 an old Northumbrian family; his father was Mr. Thomas 

 Tate, well known in England as the author of a number of 

 educational works, and his uncle, Mr. George Tate, F.G.S., was 

 a prominent North Country geologist, whose influence first 

 incited his nephew to scientific studies. Professor Tate's early 

 education was at Alnwick; subsequently he obtained a first- 

 class scientific training at the School of Mines, South Ken- 

 sington, and was sent out to several localities as a science 

 teacher under the Department of Science and Art. During 

 the three winter sessions in which he taught in Belfast, Lis- 

 burn, Carrickfergus, and elsewhere, there was quite a revival 

 of the old scientific spirit which prevailed in the North of 

 Ireland when our city was a comparatively unimportant town 

 in other respects. Mr. Tate did not confine himself merely to 

 the work for which he was paid, but engaged with a steady, 

 quiet enthusiasm in an examination of the flora, fauna, and 

 geology of the district. In 1863 he published his ' Flora 

 Belfastiensis,' being an enumeration of the plants found 

 within a radius of fifteen miles from Belfast. This was the 

 first local flora produced in the North of Ireland. He also 

 prepared a paper describing the Irish cretaceous beds, and 

 figuring some of the new species of fossils he found therein. 

 Then he explored the Irish liassic rocks, of which hitherto we 

 knew but little, and his paper on this subject, communicated 

 to our Club, and published in our " Proceedings," has remained 



