XXXIV PKOCEE DINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



work. Mr. Hugh Cuming had just returned home from his long ex- 

 pedition round the world, bringing with him vast stores of Mollusca 

 collected during his years of wandering ; many of these were alto- 

 gether new to science, and the publication of them was looked for- 

 ward to with the greatest interest both by palaeontologists and con- 

 chologists. This great work has been continued with almost unin- 

 terrupted regularity since 1843 down to the present time. 



In 1850 Mr Lovell Reeve pubhshed a useful elementary work 

 entitled ' Elements of Conchology, an introduction to the Natural 

 History of Shells and of the Animals Avhich form them.' He sub- 

 sequently became, on his removal to Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, 

 the publisher of many other works on natural history, and was 

 afterwards the proprietor of the ' Literary Gazette/ which he edited 

 with great ability from 1850 to 1856. He became a Fellow of this 

 Society in 1853, and regularly presented to our Library the succes- 

 sive Monographs of the 'Conchologia Iconica.' His last, and by some 

 considered his best, work, on the ' Land and Freshwater Mollusks of 

 the British Isles,' was published in 1863. It contains much useful 

 information " on the geographical distribution in other parts of the 

 world of the species indigenous to this country, and on the relation 

 which this distribution bears to climate, soil, and other local circum- 

 stances." He was a man of a most amiable disposition, and bore 

 with exemplary patience for eighteen months the acute sufferings 

 caused by a most painful illness. He died on the 18th of November, 

 1865. 



Dr. S. P. "Woodward, the son of Mr. Samuel Woodward of 

 Norwich, was born September 17th, 1821. By his death the 

 Society has experienced a very serious loss. His sound knowledge 

 and assistance, both as a naturalist and a palaeontologist, were always 

 at the service of the Society or of its Fellows. From his earliest 

 infancy his constitution was weak and delicate, and he showed his in- 

 chnation for the study of natural history by beginning to form a 

 collection of insects before he was eight years old ; and when he had 

 scarcely attained the age of ten years he assisted in publishing an ac- 

 count of the TricJiiosoma lueorum in Loudon's ' Magazine of Natural 

 History,' with an engraving of the insect in all its stages. In the 

 following year he began the study of land and freshwater shells, 

 and commenced the formation of his father's collection. To these 

 pursuits he soon added the study of botany, after which entomology 

 was given up, and he became a constant and zealous cultivator of 

 botany and malacology, which were never relinquished. 



In 1838 he came to London to complete his education at the 

 London University, and soon obtained an appointment in the 

 Library of the British Museum. In 1839 he succeeded Mr. Searles 

 Wood, whose health had compelled him to resign, as Sub-Curator in 

 the museum of this society, under Mr. Lonsdale. From this time 

 he added palaeontology to his other studies, and laboured assiduously 

 in the arrangement of our collections and the improvement of the 

 museum until 1845, when he was appointed Professor of Botany 



