lvili PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I909, 



Prof. "W. M. Hicks in ' Florearnus : the Chronicle of the University 

 of Sheffield ' for 1908, vol. iii. 



Sir John- Evans, K.C.B. (1823-1908). — John Evans was born 

 on November 17th, 1823, at Britwell Court, Burnham (Buckingham- 

 shire). His father, the Bev. Dr. Arthur Evans, was headmaster 

 of the Grammar School at Market Bosworth (Leicestershire), and 

 the author of numerous poems, theological essays, and a book on 

 ' Leicestershire Words, Phrases, & Proverbs.' His grandfather, 

 Lewis Evans, E.B.S., was the first mathematical master in the 

 Boyal Military Academy, Woolwich, and an amateur astronomer. 

 On his mother's side he was descended from an Huguenot branch 

 of an old Erench family. The gifts, plentifully bestowed upon 

 him by heredity, lost nothing by a sedulous cultivation, and were 

 applied to the highest aims. 



He was educated by his father at Market Bosworth, and it was 

 originally intended that he should proceed to the University of 

 Oxford, but an invitation from his maternal uncle, John Dickinson, 

 E.B.S., led him at the age of 17 to join the staff of John Dickinson 

 & Co., paper-manufacturers, of Nash Mills, Hemel Hempstead 

 (Hertfordshire). He made his home at the residence adjoining the 

 works, a country-house, where for fifty years he lived at once 

 the life of a country-gentleman, a man of business, a literary 

 scholar, and a scientific investigator. Owing to the excellence 

 of his early education, his indefatigable industry and retentive 

 memory, his range of knowledge was extremely wide. He spoke 

 several Continental languages as fluently as his own, was well 

 versed in Hebrew, and always ready with an apt quotation from 

 the Latin classics. 



He had a genial gift, both of wit and humour, which gave point 

 to many an epigram and found expression in many a polished 

 verse. It was never used unkindly, but often enlivened the 

 tedium of a long Council-meeting or added zest to a dinner-party. 

 It is a pity that no Boswell was found to preserve his pithy 

 sayings, but many will be long remembered by his friends. 



Evans was early attracted to geology : when a boy of nine, he 

 made a collection of fossils from the Wenlock Limestone of Dudley. 

 Later, he waa led by circumstances into two separate lines of 

 enquiry — on the one hand, water-supply engaged his attention, 

 particularly as regards the relations of rainfall, evaporation, and 

 percolation : on the other hand, the relics of prehistoric man. It js 



