Ixii PROCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY", [vol. lxXV, 



<(1892). and subsequently the Falconer Fellowship in Geology 

 ■& Palaeontology, which he held from 1892 to 1895. From 

 1892 to 1894 he acted as Assistant to Prof. James Geikie, 

 taking charge of the practical classes and demonstrations, and 

 Avas at the same time .Lecturer on Geology- in the Heriot-Watt 

 •College, Edinburgh. For three years he spent several months 

 ■each year in Munich, where he attended the lectures of Groth, 

 Zittel, and Weinschenk, and devoted most of his time to petrolo- 

 gical investigation. He obtained the degree of Ph.D., submitting 

 .as a Thesis his paper 'Ueber die Massengesteine des Siidlichen 

 Theiles der Insel Arran, Schottland' (Tschermak's Miri. Petr. 

 Mittheil, vol xiv, 1895, p. 663). In 1895 a Professorship of 

 Geology was established in the South African College at Cape Town, 

 .and Corstorphine was elected to the chair. He took up the work 

 in 1896, and acted at the same time as Keeper of the Geological 

 Department of the South African Museum. The Geological 

 Survey of Cape Colony was also under his charge, though it was 

 not until 1900 that he obtained the title of Director. He spent six 

 busy years in Cape Town, leaving in 1902 to act as Geologist to 

 the Consolidated Goldfields Company at Johannesburg. About 

 this time he became a prominent member of the South African 

 Geological Society, serving as President in 1906, while from 1904 

 to 1905 he was one of the Honorary Secretaries. In 1908 he set 

 up in practice as a Consulting Geologist in Johannesburg, and in 

 1913 he was appointed Principal of the South African School of 

 Mines & Technology. He died on January 25th, 1919. 



Corstorphine's only contribution to British geological literature 

 Avas his first paper on the igneous rocks of Arran. This is 

 marked by careful and scholarly work, though, in the enormous 

 expansion which has taken place in our knowledge of Scottish 

 petrography during the last twenty years, it has not attracted much 

 attention. Among South African geologists he at once took and 

 retained a high place. At Cape Town he had, unfortunately, little 

 time for field-work ; but in the Annual Reports of the Geological 

 Survey of Cape Colony he published the results of his investigations 

 principally in the history of geological research and the correlation 

 of the different formations of the Colony and adjacent districts. 

 In this way he laid the foundation of an extensive and critical 

 knowledge of South African geological problems, which bore fruit 

 in the well-known text-book of the Geology of South Africa, 

 written conjointly with Dr. F. H. Hatch, and published in 1905. 



