38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
On the 30th November the Society lost one of its oldest Foreign 
Members, Sven Nizsson, who on that day fell asleep, in his 96th 
year, at Lund, in the University of which he long held a prominent 
Professorship. His first publication noticed in the * Royal Society’s 
Catalogue of Scientific Papers,’ is dated 1816, but he had published 
four years earlier (1812) a paper on the different methods of classi- 
fying the Mammalia. The date of his latest paper of which I find any 
notice is 1873. His researches, published mostly in Swedish, dealt 
chiefly with Zoology, Ethnology, and Antiquities. One of his pale- 
ontological papers, published in 1827 at Lund, treats of the Creta- 
eeous Fossils of Sweden. 
Another very aged Foreign Member who last year passed away to 
his long rest is PrerrE Merrran, M.D., of Basle. According to the 
‘Royal Society’s Catalogue of Scientific Papers,’ his first paper was 
published in 1817, and by 1873 the number of memoirs and shorter 
papers which had then issued from his pen amounted to 98. Most 
of the subjects treated in these are geological. His more important 
works are :—‘ Beitrige zur Geognosie,’ 1821; ‘ Geognostische Ueber- 
sicht des stidlichen Schwarzwaldes,’ 1831; and ‘ Ueber die in Basel 
wahrgenommenen Erdbeben,’ 1834. He is said to have been a man 
of genial temperament and very hospitable, and to have been much 
beloved. 
By the death of M. Henri Coauanp the Society lost one of its 
Foreign Correspondents, elected in 1871. The place and time of 
his decease are both unknown to me, as is also his age; but this 
must have been advanced, since his first paper was published in 
1835 or 1836. He was a voluminous writer: his published contri- 
butions to science, recorded in the ‘ Royal Society’s Catalogue of 
Scientific Papers,’ up to the end of 1873, amounted to 76. A large 
proportion of these, I am informed, relate to the geology of the 
Secondary period. Amongst his principal works are :—a ‘ Traité des 
Roches,’ Paris, 1857; ‘ Description physique, géologique, paléonto- 
logique et minéralogique du Département de la Charente,’ 8vo, 
Besancon, 1858; ‘ Géologie et Paléontologie de la Région sud de la 
Province de Constantine,’ 8vo; Atlas, 4to, Marseilles, 1865; and 
* Monographie de l’étage Aptien de l’Espagne,’ 8vo, Marseilles, 1865. 
Turning from these sad memories to a retrospect of the work 
accomplished by the Society in the past year, it is satisfactory to 
find that, notwithstanding the numerous losses the Society has sus- 
tained, there have not appeared any traces of “ dissipation of energy” 
in its zeal for research in those branches of ‘‘natural knowledge,” 
the investigation of which is the motive of its existence. The gaps 
in our ranks have been filled by fresh labourers; and, to judge by 
the number of communications received, by their matter, and by the 
large attendances at. our meetings, the present session may fairly 
claim to have been one of more than average interest. 
