XIV 



Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



which in later days were showered upon him. At the time of his death he 

 was President-elect of the Meteorological Conference to be held in 1914 

 at Edinburgh, and was actually engaged in making arrangements for a 

 successful meeting the day before his tragic end. 



Sir John held strong views on Education. He had little use for the 

 " grand fortifying curriculum " of the Classics, but I shall never forget how 

 indignant he was with me when a few years ago I was unable to produce at 

 almost a moment's notice a tutor for his son, who was to be at once " a first- 

 class classic and a thoroughly trained oceanographer." His son was then reading 

 for the Previous Examination and embarking on a voyage round the world. 



Apart from his science, which would have occupied the entire time of 

 most men, Sir John was latterly also interested in commerce. A bit of 

 material included among a collection of deep-sea deposits from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean enabled him to recognise 

 that that remote island contained valuable phosphatic deposits. The island 

 was quite uninhabited, but obviously a source of wealth, and he urged 

 the Government to annex the island. Ultimately they did so, and Sir 

 John obtained a lease of it along with Mr. Eoss, of the Cocos Islands. A 

 company was formed to develop its resources, and Mr. C. W. Andrews, of 

 the Geological Department of the British Museum, was granted leave of 

 absence for a year, and in 1897-8 he visited and explored the island, Sir 

 John paying all the expenses and presenting the specimens Mr. Andrews 

 collected to the British Museum. The Trustees in 1900 published the result 

 of the researches in a monograph, which is a most interesting record of the 

 indigenous animals and plants of a lonely oceanic island both before the 

 arrival of civilised man and after. 



Sir John himself on several occasions visited Christmas Island, and crossed 

 it from end to end. Valuable deposits of phosphates were found, water was 

 discovered, clearings were made, a railway laid down, waterworks and piers 

 constructed, aerial haulage erected, and houses built. The island now 

 maintains a population of about 1500, composed of Europeans, Colonials, 

 Chinese, Malays, Sikhs, etc., and a flourishing business is being carried on 

 in the export of phosphates. Plantations of rubber, hemp, coconuts, 

 bananas, papaws, cotton, etc., have been established with more or less 

 success. Sir John always looked upon this development as an indirect 

 result of the scientific work of the " Challenger " Expedition, and an excellent 

 argument for such research work being carried on by the Government. He 

 knew that His Majesty's Treasury had received in hard cash within the 

 past 15 years, in the form of rents, royalties, and taxes, a sum greater than 

 the cost to the country of the whole " Challenger " Expedition, and he 

 recalled how, during the time the money was being annually voted for the 

 issue of the "Challenger" publications, many Members of Parliament 

 objected to public money being voted for such a purpose. 



To enumerate the various honorary degrees, honorary memberships of 

 learned Societies, medals and decorations of all sorts that Sir John received 



