lx PROCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I907, 



Geoege Cheetham Churchill, who died full of years on 

 October 11th, 1906, was the son of a Nottingham manufacturer, 

 and was born in that town on September 25th, 1822. Educated as a 

 solicitor, he was, while still a boy, deeply interested in natural history, 

 especially entomology. In early manhood the experiments, already 

 begun, of Messrs. J. B. Lawes and J. H. Gilbert, attracted him to 

 the subject of land-treatment ; and he gained an intimate friend in 

 Josiah Gilbert, the artist brother of the latter. After his marriage 

 in 1853, Churchill removed to Manchester, and at the end of ten 

 years found himself able to retire from professional work and 

 devote himself wholly to scientific study. His vacations had for 

 some time been occupied by botanical researches, and in 1856 he 

 and Gilbert, accompanied by their wives, obtained, as they tell us, 

 their first glimpses of the Dolomite Mountains. In 1860 Churchill 

 returned to them alone, and the three following summers were 

 spent by the four friends in wandering among the grand and 

 beautiful scenery which that rock affords, from the Rosengarten to 

 the Karawanken Alps. These journeys bore fruit in ' The Dolomite 

 Mountains/ a joint issue, published in 1864, which at once took a 

 high place in Alpine literature, and in that year Churchill was 

 elected a Fellow of this Society. Left a widower in 1866, he 

 settled finally at Clifton in 1869, after his second marriage. That 

 union was a brief one, but in 1873 he again found a sympathetic 

 companion, who survives him. So long as health permitted, he 

 continued his travels in search of plants, especially Alpine, and in 

 later years largely augmented his herbarium by exchange and 

 purchase. That herbarium, containing altogether above 10,000 

 species, varieties, and hybrids, now belongs, partly by gifts during life, 

 partly by bequest, to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which he had 

 greatly aided in forming their fine collection of living Alpine plants. 

 Though he never contributed to our Journal, the chapter on the 

 Dolomite Mountains, which Churchill wrote to that volume, shows 

 that he had not only studied, but had also grasped the literature of 

 the subject. In short, he was a first-rate botanist, no mean 

 geologist, and a man of wide general culture. 1 



John Frederick Blake was, for many years, one of the most 

 familiar figures at our Meetings, where he read papers and where 

 he often took part in the discussions of the papers of others. He 

 was born at Stoke-next-Guildford on April 3rd, 1839 ; and, after an 

 education at Christ's Hospital, London, went to Caius College, 



1 This notice has been kindly contributed by Prof. Bonney. 



