ANXIVEKSARY ADDRESS OP THE PRESIDENT. 43 



the colliery owned by his family at Tylorstown, in the lihondda 

 Yalley, he found time to study anatomy for a period at St. Bartho- 

 lomew's Hospital, and afterwards to become an accomplished geolo- 

 gist. But even this was not all : he was an earnest advocate for 

 technical education, and devoted no small portion of his time to 

 various duties outside his own business. He is the author of not a 

 few papers, published in our Journal and elsewhere ; and it may be 

 mentioned that he was one of the first to doubt the authenticity of 

 the celebrated Moulin-Quignon jaw. His most important and ela- 

 borate papers are devoted to questions connected with the action of 

 rain, rivers, and ice ; and he may be regarded as the author of the 

 name " the Pluvial Period." Whatever opinions may be held as to 

 the advantage of giving a special designation to the transitional 

 interval between the Glacial epoch and that when the climate of the 

 northern hemisphere finally arrived at its present condition, all must 

 admit that Mr. Tylor did excellent work in drawing attention to the 

 heavier rainfall which must have formerly prevailed, as well as in 

 noting many interesting facts with regard to the various fluviatile 

 deposits. His health failed during the last two or three years of his 

 life, overmuch work having brought on renal disease ; but, notwith- 

 standing his malady, he was able to visit America in the autumn of 

 1884. On his return, however, his strength rapidly declined, and 

 he died on December 31, " not so much from specific disease as from 

 a collapse of the whole framework of life." He was married in 

 1850, and has left a widow and six children. It will be long before 

 some of Mr. Tyler's work is forgotten in the annals of geology ; but 

 he has left another — may I not say a better ? — monument in the 

 regretful affection of many friends of his own standing, and in the 

 enduring gratitude both of those less prosperous than himself, whom 

 he liberally aided, and of not a few members of a younger genera- 

 tion, to whom, before they could help themselves, he held out a 

 hand to give them that greatest boon, a fair chance in life. 



James Btjckman was born at Cheltenham in the year 1814. 

 Designed for the medical profession, he studied in London, but not 

 liking it, he returned to Cheltenham and commenced business as a 

 chemist. But while in London he had evidenced a predilection for 

 science, and had made a considerable collection of plants then found in 

 the vicinity of the metropolis. In the year 1842 he was appointed to 

 the curatorship of the Birmingham Philosophical Institute, where he 

 remained till his election as Professor at the Agricultural College 

 at Cirencester. There he worked assiduously for sixteen years, 

 retiring in 1863 to a farm at Bradford Abbas, in Dorsetshire, where 

 he died on November 23, 1884. He wrote a large number of papers 

 on archaeology, botany (especially agricultural), and geology, some of 

 the last being contributed to our Journal ; these dealt with questions 

 concerning the palaeontology and stratigraphy of the Jurassic series 

 of the districts with which he was most familiar ; the last, published 

 in the 37th volume of oar Journal, being " On the terminations of 

 some Ammonites from the Inferior Oolite of Dorset and Somerset." 



