62 TROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



"William John Stephens joined our ranks in 1883. He held a 

 leading" place among the men of science in New South Wales, where 

 he filled the office of Professor of Geology in the University of 

 Sydney. He took an active share in the institution and work of 

 the Linnean Society of the colony, of which, at the time of his 

 death, he was President. 



I reserve for final notice a name which will awaken many 

 pleasant but saddened memories — that of William Sweetland 

 Dallas. Among the heavy losses which the Society has sustained 

 during the past year there is none that has so profoundly afiected 

 our life and work as his death. Por some two-and-twenty years his 

 tall handsome person has been the most familiar figure within our 

 walls. Always at his post, with a pleasant smile of welcome, ever 

 ready with assistance from his large treasures of knowledge and 

 experience, knowing more intimately than any one else the affairs 

 and traditions of the Society, proud of its history and keenly sensi- 

 tive for its scientific reputation, he had come to be looked upon as a 

 kind of genius loci — the living embodiment of the Society's aims and 

 work. While his wide range of acquirement gained him the respect 

 not of our Fellows only, but of the great body of naturalists in this 

 country, his genial kindly ways gave him a sure place in the heart 

 of every one who was ever brought into much close personal contact 

 with him. 



Born in London in 1824, it was among the hills and woods to the 

 north of this city that he showed in early boyhood the tastes that 

 were to fashion his future career. He devoted himself with ardour 

 to entomology, not as a mere butterfly-gatherer, but with increasing 

 zeal as a true naturalist. His father's death made it needful for 

 him to take early to some calling, and as his boyish pursuits offered 

 no prospect of a livelihood, he was placed in a house of business in 

 the City. But before long the restraints and associations of such a 

 life became too irksome for him, and he found his way into the 

 reading-room of the British Museum, where, in his zeal to have a 

 work of reference in his favourite department of science, he actually 

 copied out in his own clear handwriting the whole of Pabricius's 

 colossal " Entomologia Systematica," a work in 2677 octavo pages, 

 adding a coloured figure of each genus in its proper place. Enthu 

 siasm and industry of so marked a kind soon attracted the notice of 

 his seniors, and especially of Dr. John Edward Gray of the British 

 Museum. The young man was encouraged to contribute papers to 



