BY JOSEPH WEIGHT. 237 



with enthusiasm. In his investigations into glacial phenomena, 

 careful observations were made at the great Lakes of the Ameri- 

 can continent, the gorge of the Magara, and the valley of the St. 

 Lawrence, followed afterwards by an examination of the steppes 

 of Siberia and Southern Russia, and among the drifts and gravels 

 of our own country. These results were from time to time com- 

 municated to the various learned societies and Scientific Period- 

 icals. It was his intention to embody his accumulated facts and 

 observations in this department of geological enquiry in a work 

 on Glacial Phenomena; but this purpose of his life his early 

 death has prevented. 



Whilst in ]N"ova-Scotia, where he sojourned for two or three 

 years, he took an active part in the Proceedings of the l!Tova- 

 Scotian Institute of JSTatural Science ; and the first geological 

 paper printed in their Transactions is from his pen ; it is also in 

 these Transactions that his paper on the Glacial Period in J^orth 

 America appeared. 



After his return from ITova- Scotia, he was engaged for some 

 time in examining the quartz rocks of JN^orth "Wales, a project 

 having been at that time started to seek for gold in these rocks. 

 Whilst so engaged he examined carefully the geology and palaeon- 

 tology of the district of Dolgelly, where he resided, and the re- 

 sults of which he published in two papers in the ' ' Geological 

 Magazine," Yols. IV., Y., 1867-8. 



In 1868 Mr. Belt went to Nicaragua to superintend the 

 mining operations of the Chontales Gold Mining Company. 

 Here he remained until 1872, and to his residence in that dis- 

 trict we owe the work by which his name will be best known. 

 This work, ''The Naturalist in Nicaragua," he published in 

 1874, and we have in it one of the most interesting volumes of 

 Travel and Natural History in the English language. His 

 observations on the various departments of Zoology, Botany, and 

 Geology, which came under his notice in that district show the 

 eye and the pen of a competent investigator, and render the 

 book truly a classic one amongst our Natural History literature. 

 In 1873, and again in 1875 and 1876, he was in Ihissia, and 

 travelled owv a hirge portion of that great Empire. IMio ste])])os 



