Henry Clifton Sorby. Iv 
examination, but to qualify myself for a career of original investigation.’* It 
must be acknowledged that this training was eminently successful in pro- 
ducing a man of science who, gifted with remarkable originality of mind, 
marvellous industry, unwearied perseverance, and singular mechanical 
ingenuity, attained distinction in various branches of science, and left his 
mark on every domain of research into which he entered. 
Being in possession of ample means, he determined to remain at Sheffield, 
where opportunities for conducting experimental research offered themselves, 
and he made that town his home up to the end of his long life. He resided 
with his mother until her deathin 1874. Thereafter, being free to take longer 
journeys, he bought a yacht, the “Glimpse,” and for many years spent the 
summer months dredging and making biological and physical observations 
in the estuaries and inland waters of the east of England. The winters were 
spent in Sheffield, carrying on his experiments. For some years past he is 
known to have been engaged in working up the results of various researches 
made long ago, of which the details had never been published. Even when 
confined to bed, in the last months, from the effects of an accident, his 
mental activity continued as vigorous as ever. During that time he prepared 
and sent to the Geological Society a long and elaborate paper, and carried on 
his correspondence with his own hand. He continued to busy himself with his 
notes even up to the day before his death. On the night of Sunday, March 9, 
last, he lost consciousness, and lingered till the following evening, when he 
quietly passed away in the eighty-second year of his age. 
In looking over Sorby’s published papers, more than one hundred and fifty 
in number, one is first impressed by the extraordinary mental versatility 
which they display, and the uninterrupted continuity with which they came 
from his pen, from the time when he was one-and-twenty, up to within 
a few days of his death. His earliest published communication appears 
to have been one “On the Amount of Sulphur and Phosphorus in Various 
Agricultural Crops,” which not only appeared in the‘ Memoirs of the Chemical 
Society ’ and the ‘ Philosophical Magazine,’ but was translated into ‘ Froriep’s 
_Notizen.’ It was probably suggested by some of the chemical studies which 
he had carried on with his tutor. He soon struck out into a more original 
path. It was into the geological domain that, influenced by his environment, 
he was first attracted, and it was there that he found the widest field for his 
peculiar powers, and achieved his greatest success. The rivers Don and 
Rother, which flowed near his home, drew his attention by the evidence 
presented in their valleys that the streams had not always kept to their 
present channels, but had wandered to and fro across their alluvial plains. 
He was thus led to examine the internal arrangement of alluvial deposits, 
* The writer of this obituary notice is indebted for information to an Address 
by Dr. Sorby on his ‘Scientific Investigations during the last Fifty Years,’ given to the 
Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society, on February 2, 1897, and published in the 
75th Annual Report of the Society in 1898. The occasional citations in this notice are 
taken from that Address. 
VOL. LXXX.—B. F 
