xlvii 



it will doubtless be well employed. Soutli, however, still v^^orked with his me- 

 ridian instruments ; among other things he observed a considerable num- 

 ber of stars with the Groombridge circle, and the results are probably valu- 

 able, as each observation was direct and reflected on the same night with 

 twelve microscopes. He for some years carried on an elaborate series of 

 experiments on clocks to ascertain their performance in vacuo, the air's re- 

 sistance to pendulums, the influence of various modes of suspending them, 

 and the elfect of screens in their vicinity. These are, it is believed, all pre- 

 served, and may perhaps be published. Another object to which he devoted 

 much research, was the disturbance which might occur to an observatory from 

 the vicinity of a railroad ; and an account of his observations at Watford 

 respecting it, which appears in our Proceedings for 1863, was his last con- 

 tribution to science. For some years before his death his hearing and 

 sight were alm^ost entirely lost, and this helpless condition was made more 

 afliicting by much bodily suffering, from which he was released onOctober 19, 

 1867. He was knighted in 1831 by William IV., with whom he was a favo- 

 rite. He was one of the original Visitors of Greenwich Observatory, and a 

 Member of the Astronomical Society, the Linnean, the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh, Royal Irish Academy, and of several others.^ — T. R. R. 



Joseph Toynbee, well known as an eminent Aural Surgeon, was dis- 

 tinguished for the remarkable industry with which he strove to give a 

 scientific character to the branch of medical practice to which he had de- 

 voted himself. He was born at Heckington, in Lincolnshire, and died at 

 his professional residence, in London, on the 7th of July, 1866, in the 

 fifty-first year of his age. 



" After completing his education at Lynn, Mr. Toynbee was articled to 

 Mr. Wm. Wade, of the Westminster General Dispensary, and afterwards 

 became a pupil at St. George's Hospital. Having early exhibited a taste 

 for anatomical pursuits, he was, whilst still young, appointed Assistant 

 Curator in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Soon after 

 this, his love of anatomical inquiry displayed itself in a microscopic inves- 

 tigation, the results of which were embodied in a paper read before the 

 Royal Society, and published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1841, 

 entitled "Researches tending to prove the Non-vascularity of certain 

 Animal Tissues, and to demonstrate the peculiarly uniform mode of their 

 Organization and Nutrition." This memoir, though, when viewed b}^ the 

 light of recent histology, of but limited scope, v/as a real contribution 

 to science at the period of its publication. 



In his subsequent labours, Mr. Toynbee turned his attention exclusively 

 to the Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology of the Organs of Hearing. 

 Thus he contributed to the Meetings of the Royal Society four papers, 

 bearing the following titles : — 1 . " On the Structure of the Membrana 

 Tympani of the Human Ear" (1 850). 2. " On the Function of the Mem- 

 brana Tympani, the Ossicles and Muscles of the Tympanum, and of the 



