V 



In the year 1874:, a vacancy occurring for the post of Hydrographer 

 of the Admiralty, he was selected to fill it ; his habits of extreme 

 accuracy and method, and his ripe and extended knowledge of the 

 numerous and varied subjects which came within the province of 

 that department to investigate and to deal with, rendered him pecu- 

 liarly fitted to fulfil the duties of the position, which he continued 

 to perform with equal ability and conscientiousness till within a little 

 more than a year of his death ; the multifarious calls of his new 

 office, however, diverted him more and more from exclusive attention 

 to his favourite science, though he still found time to draw up and 

 read before the Royal Geographical Society in 1878, an able and 

 instructive lecture on the Magnetism of the Earth, showing the dis- 

 tribution and direction of its magnetic force, and the changes in its 

 elements, as then known. 



Drawn together by the sympathies engendered by similar tastes and 

 pursuits, he and the late Sir Edward Sabine had long been close 

 friends and coadjutors, and during the last years of the labours of 

 that distinguished savant, Evans had rendered him assistance in com- 

 pleting his great work, " Contributions to Terrestrial Magnetism," 

 contained in the fifteen numbers of the " Magnetic Survey of the 

 Globe, ; ' for the epoch 1842-5. 



Science in this country has not always met with official encourage- 

 ment, or reward, whether in, or outside of the public service, though 

 it is the nation which is chiefly the gainer by it ; and it was late in 

 life before the valuable services rendered by Captain Evans to his 

 own and other countries received any kind of recognition, though 

 honorary rewards were proffered by foreign Governments. The expla- 

 nation is perhaps, that the remedy for a serious difficulty was dis- 

 covered before its existence had generally made itself felt, and that 

 in the Xaval profession it has been always a maxim that impossi- 

 bilities arise only to be overcome in the ordinary course of duty. 



In order to show, however, that these services were appreciated by 

 the department with which he was immediately associated, the writer 

 of this notice is induced to give an extract from a statement which 

 nearly seventeen years ago it became his duty to place before the 

 authorities in regard to them : — 



" When he found himself in the responsible position 



of head of the Compass Department, at a time when the complete 

 revolution in shipbuilding raised the serious question whether it was 

 possible so to deal with the magnetic influence of the iron which 

 entered so largely into the construction and fittings of a modern 

 ship as to retain the efficiency of the compass, he readily entered 

 upon a task involving years of close and laborious investigation, 

 experimental and theoretical, of the intricacies of an iron ship's mag- 

 netism; nor did he ever shrink from the responsibility of acting on 



