﻿1 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1905, 



acutely-philosophic mind with mechanical and artistic ability, 

 he was well equipped for the task of applying to brachiopods, 

 to trilobites, and to corals the principles of individual development 

 and race-history enunciated in his own country by Cope and Hyatt. 

 His classification of the Brachiopoda, based on these principles, is 

 now generally accepted ; while his later attempt to solve the still 

 more difficult problem of Trilobite taxonomy and relationships has 

 met with a cordial, if occasionally critical, welcome. His illu- 

 minating and suggestive papers on Palaeozoic corals gave unfulfilled 

 promise of yet another much-needed classification from his pen. 

 The revision of Devonian Phyllocarida, presented by him to our 

 Society in 1902, gathered up observations that he had accumulated 

 since 1884, when the same fossils had formed the subject of his 

 first independent publication. The patient enthusiasm, the lucid 

 mind, and the dexterous hand, which enabled Beecher to leave such 

 deep impressions on his chosen science, fitted him no less eminently 

 for his combined profession of university-teacher and museum- 

 curator. Of Yale's mourning and America's loss others have fully 

 and fittingly spoken x ; ours is the task of testifying to the admiration 

 with which we here all regarded his active life, and the sorrow that 

 fell on us in his sudden and too early death. [F. A. B.] 



In Lieut.-General Charles Alexander McMahon, F.K.S., who 

 died at his residence in Nevern Square, London, on February 21st 

 of last year, our Society loses one who made himself a geologist 

 among the mountain-defences of India and continued his studies 

 after his return to England. A descendant of an old Irish family, 

 and the son of Capt. Alexander McMahon, of the East India 

 Company's service, he was born at Highgate on March 23rd, 1830, 

 and obtained his first commission on February 4th, 1847, in the 

 39th Madras Native Infantry, where he served for eight years. 

 After this he became a member of the Madras Staff Corps, and was 

 transferred to the Punjab Commission. Here he did admirable 

 work for thirty years as Commissioner and Judge. It was due to 

 his nerve and promptness in action that, at the outbreak of the 

 Indian Mutiny — in May 1857 — just after he had taken charge of the 

 Sialkot district, the revolted native troops were met and crushed by 

 General Nicholson, then on the march to Delhi. His ability as a 

 Judge was demonstrated by his decision in a complicated suit against 



1 For full references, see E. T. Jackson, in the ' American Naturalist ' 

 vol. xxxviii (1904) pp. 407-26. 



