liv Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 
study coins, and he became in the end one of the most accomplished numis- 
matists of his day. His first independent volume, ‘ The Coins of the Ancient 
Britons, published in 1864, possessed singular interest and value from the 
abundant evidence it supplied of the existence of a gold coinage in England 
before the coming of the Romans, and from its ingenious proofs (which had 
been first published by him as far back as April, 1848), that these British 
coins had originally been imitations of a stater of Philip of Macedon, but by 
successive copying of the imitation had become so rude that, but for the 
preservation of the intervening stages of debasement, the origin of their 
pattern would never have been surmised. Another of Evans’ antiquarian 
writings which has taken its place as the standard treatise on the subject of 
which it treats is his ‘Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons and Ornaments 
of Great Britain and Ireland.’ From the nature of these objects and the 
positions in which they have generally been found they do not furnish the 
same kind of geological evidence as to their relative dates, and the author 
discussed them mainly from the antiquarian side. As an instance of Sir John’s 
watchful zeal and singular success as a collector of antiquities, the writer of 
this notice may allude to an incident which occurred a few years ago. On his 
way to Greece, Evans had picked up at a dealer’s in Paris a well-preserved 
gold coin of one of the Roman Emperors and showed it to the friends whom 
he met in Rome. A few days after his arrival in the Italian capital he 
astonished these friends by producing another beautiful gold coin which he 
had bought from a dealer there—a coin of the wife of the same Emperor. 
Sir John Evans was elected into the Royal Society in 1864. In the course 
of three years he was chosen to serve on the Council, a position which he 
again filled from 1873 to 1875. His business capacity on the Council was 
further recognised in 1878 when he was elected Treasurer of the Society. 
This distinguished and responsible office he continued to hold for the long 
term of twenty years. During that period he was unremitting in his care of 
the Society’s finances, which he left in an orderly and sound condition.* At 
‘ the same time he took an active part in the conduct of the general business, 
his practical knowledge of affairs and his experienced judgment always giving 
to his counsel anespecial value. On the occasion, in 1884, when the President, 
Professor Huxley, was disabled by ill-health, Evans prepared and delivered 
the Anniversary Address. As, in the absence of the President, the Treasurer, 
who is usually also a Vice-President, takes the Chair, Sir John had frequent 
opportunities of presiding both at the Council and in the meetings of the 
Society. His conduct as Chairman was often singularly felicitous in the tact 
and humour of his remarks. 
While his activity in the Royal Society was thus so marked, he had time 
and energy to spare for the claims of other societies. He had an especial 
affection for the Geological Society, which, as far back as 1857, had enrolled 
* On his retirement from the Treasurership, Sir John gave an interesting account of 
the state of the Society’s finances, and showed how considerably the funds had increased 
during the time in which he had held office.—‘ Year Book’ for 1899, p. 160. 
