42 6 [Proe. B.N.F.O., 



corners of the district, or to attempt to verify old records, for the 

 purposes of the Supplement to the Flora which appeared in 1895. 

 I deem it a privilege to have been his frequent companion during 

 those years. Long after Stewart was compelled by advancing 

 years to abandon long expeditions and laborious mountain walks 

 his stimulus was present ; it was the thought of his satisfaction that 

 led to attempts, renewed time after time, to refind plants long 

 missing ; and the thought of the interest and pleasure which a new- 

 discovery would give him doubled one's own interest in finding a 

 rare plant. To the end he remained the mainspring of all botanical 

 work in the Club, and his death will long be deplored by us who 

 were his pupils. 



We must now turn to Stewart's work as a geologist. In its 

 main features the story of his geological career resembles that 

 which has been already sketched in relation to Botany. He worked 

 in his earlier years simultaneously at both studies. Indeed, 

 Geology would appear to have furnished his earliest great scientific 

 interest, and the writings of Hugh Miller to have been his incentive. 

 From this we may infer that it was the older rocks which first 

 engaged his attention, not those newer deposits in connection with 

 which his name is best known to geologists. Before the Field 

 Club was formed he found in Ralph Tate an inspiring geological 

 teacher ; with him he worked at the secondary rocks which form 

 so unique a feature in the building up of Co. Antrim. Though he 

 did not publish any paper relating to the Palaeozoic or Mesozoic 

 strata, no one knew the local sections and fossil localities better 

 than he ; and whether one wished to collect Graptolites at Coalpit 

 Bay, Permian Mollusca at Cultra, Ammonites at Barney's Point or 

 Waterloo, Fishes from the Rhsetic beds, or Pectens from the Chalk, 

 no better guide could be found than Stewart. This was no doubt 

 largely the result of Tate's sound teaching and energetic field-work 

 during the first years of the Club's existence. 



Stewart's imagination was early caught by the problems 

 connected with that difficult epoch of geological history, the 



