234 DR. D. WOOLACOTT's OBITUARY OF 



Professor George Alexarider Louis Lebour, M.A., D.Sc, 

 -F.G.S., Murchison Medallist, Geological Society of London. 



By D. Woolacott, D.Sc, F.G.S. 



The late Professor Lebour was born at St. Omer in 1847. 

 His father was an artist of distinction from whom he inherited 

 his essentially artistic temperament and the natural ease witii 

 which he drew illustrations and sections for his geological 

 work and lectures. His mother was a highly cultured and 

 .accomplished woman, who took a great interest in the 

 intellectual development of her only son, entirely directing his 

 early studies. 



Both his parents were French, but when Lebour was two 

 years old they came to England and thus he grew up within 

 the literary and artistic circle of the London of the middle 

 part of last century. His interest in literature, art and music 

 began early in life and continued with him throughout it. 

 He seems, however, early to have shown in which direction 

 his work was to lie, as when a boy he was quite exceptionally 

 interested in natural objects, out of which developed that wide 

 and profound knowledge of the subject he eventually made 

 his profession. 



He studied at the Royal School of Mines, and during the 

 years he was a student came under the influence of the master 

 minds of Tyndall the physicist, Huxley the biologist, Ramsay 

 the geologist, and other leading scientists of the day, of whose 

 peculiarities he delighted to tell. 



In 1867 he received an appointment on the Geological 

 Survey of England and Wales, and worked with Topley for 

 some years in Northumberland. During these years he gained 

 the foundations of a unique knowledge of north-east England, 

 which, gradually developing, enabled him to write his book on 

 the Geology of Northumberland and Durham. This work is 

 full of accurate and original observations, and is a mine of 



