OBITUARY. 157 



evaporated spirit, remained untouched until her return in 1877, to 

 unpack them. It is a striking tribute to the care which had been 

 taken that out of many thousands of bottles only four were broken. 

 In 1881 he succeeded Sir Wyville Thomson as editor of the Eeports 

 which were just beginning to appear, and for twenty-three years 

 superintended the issue of those fifty ponderous tomes, containing 

 over 29,000 pages and about 3000 lithographed plates, charts, and 

 other illustrations. He contributed himself, in collaboration with 

 the late Abbe Eenard, an epoch-making volume on the ' Deep-sea 

 Deposits ' — a work which laid the foundations of that branch of 

 science, and which will always be essential to the worker in it, even 

 though he may disagree with some of its conclusions. 



Although when this task was finished he initiated other scientific 

 enterprises, he still regarded the ' Challenger ' expedition as the great 

 work of his life, and recognized this by naming his house and one of 

 his sons after the vessel. 



His later works included expeditions in the ' Knight Errant ' and 

 ' Triton ' ; the foundation of marine laboratories at Granton and 

 Millport ; a bathymetrical survey of the Scottish Lakes (undertaken 

 in conjunction with his friend, the late Mr. Fred. Pallar) ; the 

 exploitation of Christmas Island ; and an expedition, along with Dr. 

 Johan Hjort, in the Norwegian steamer ' Michael Sars,' the cost of 

 which was borne by Murray himself. Its results were published in 

 a joint work entitled the ' Depths of the Ocean,' in 1912. 



It is needless to add that he received degrees and decorations and 



other distinctions too numerous to mention, but the memory in the 



hearts of those who knew him and worked with him is that of a man 



endowed with a deep-seated love of truth and of science for its own 



sake, and a loyal comrade who unflinchingly, not to say brutally, 



told his friends just what he thought of them to their faces, and 



never spoke ill of them behind their backs ; of one who, though he 



might seem unfeeling to the outsider, could always be depended on 



for sympathy and help in time of need. 



W. E. H. 



George Bentley Corbin. 

 We regret to record the loss of another old and valued contributor 

 to the ' Zoologist ' in the person of Mr. G. B. Corbin, who passed 

 away on March 12th last, aged seventy-three years. Mr. Corbin 

 was quite a self-made man; he was educated at the National 

 Schools, and this education terminated at an early age, when he was 



