Ixiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [^ay 1 898, 



George Harrt Piper, second son of the late Capt. E, J. Piper, 

 R.N., was born in London in 1819. His parents removed to 

 Herefordshire in 1829, taking their son George, then a boy 10 

 years old, with them. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1849, and 

 from that time commenced to practise in Ledbury, where he 

 continued in his profession until his death on August 26th, 

 1897. 



' Mr. Piper took a keen interest in the progress and work of 

 the Horticultural and Natural History Societies of the County of 

 Hereford, and had filled the position of President both of the 

 Woolhope jSTaturalists' Field Club and the Malvern ^Naturalists' 

 Pield Club. To these Societies he communicated many papers, and 

 with them he did much excellent work in botany, local archfleologj', 

 and geology, more especially in the latter field of research. 



' Mr. Piper's geological work was carried on tor many years in 

 association with the late Rev. W. S. Symonds, M.A., P.G.S., of 

 Pendock Rectory, Tewkesbury ; Dr. Bull, of Hereford ; the Rev. 

 P. B. Brodie, M.A., P.G.S., and other enthusiastic workers. 



' The greatest geological achievement performed by Mr. Piper 

 was the carrying out successfully, after many years of patient 

 exploration, the complete examination and recording, foot by foot, 

 of the famous section near the railway-tunnel at Ledbury, com- 

 prising the series of deposits from the Aymestry Limestone, through 

 the Upper Ludlow rocks ; the Downton Sandstone, with Pterygotus ; 

 the Ledbury Shales, consisting of red, grey^ purple shales, and grey 

 marl-beds, with Pteymspis^ Auchenaspis, Cephalaspis^ Onchus, Ptery- 

 gotus, Lingula cornea, etc. ; followed by Lower Old Red Sandstone, 

 with Pterygotus, Pteraspis, and Cephalaspis, etc. 



' In Mr. Symonds's paper " On the Old Red of Herefordshire " 

 he writes of the passage-beds at Ledbury : '• Having again visited 

 Ludlow, and compared the passage-beds of that district with those 

 of Ledbury, I am convinced that nowhere perhaps in the world is 

 there such an exhibition of passage-beds presented to the eye of 

 the geologist as at the Ledbary Tunnel on the Worcester and 

 Hereford Railway." See H. Woodward's ' Brit. Poss. Crustacea ' 

 (Merostomata), Pal. Soc. part iii, 1871, p. 99. 



' The rich collection of fossils which Mr. Piper formed from the 

 Ledbury Tunnel section, and from other localities in the neighbour- 

 hood, will, it is believed, shortly find a home in the British Museum 

 (Natural History), Cromwell Road, to which institution so many of 

 his fine Cephalaspidian fishes have already been presented in past 

 years, including the superb group of twelve individuals of Cejphalaspis 



