4 o 



PE0CEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



other papers on geological subjects in the same periodical. In 

 1823, the year of his election, he forwarded a paper to this Society 

 " On the Geography and Geology of Lake Huron," which was 

 published in 1824, in the first volume of our 'Transactions/ 

 Until his return to England his contributions to scientific litera- 

 ture made their appearance chiefly in American publications ; and 

 for some years after his return he seems to have done but little, 

 his medical practice probably occupying his time very fully. After 

 his removal to London, however, several papers from his pen were 

 communicated to the Society ; and among them may be noticed 

 especially his paper " On the Palaeozoic Basin of the State of New 

 York," which appeared in the Quarterly Jourual for 1858, and 

 was followed by "An Inquiry into the Sedimentary and other 

 Natural Relations of the Palaeozoic Fossils of the State of New 

 York,"' published in 1859 ; his note " On the Erratics of Canada," 

 printed in the Journal for 1851 ; and his last communication to 

 our ' Proceedings,' " On Missing Sedimentary Formations," pub- 

 lished in 1864. Other memoirs of his appeared in various perio- 

 dicals, such as the ' Philosophical Magazine ' and the ' Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History,' the last of them bearing date 1867. 



The narrative of his Canadian travels appeared in 1850, in two 

 octavo volumes, under the fanciful title of ' The Shoe and Canoe.' 

 Although evidently written by the light of knowledge subsequently 

 obtained, it furnishes an interesting- account of the condition of 

 Canada some sixty years ago, and is rendered' • amusing by the dis- 

 play of that naive geniality mingled with shrewdness which cha- 

 racterized the author to the end of his life. It contains many 

 scattered popular notes on geological and other natural-history 

 subjects. 



During the last twenty years of his life Dr. Bigsby was engaged 

 in a work of great labour and research, the first outcome of which 

 was the ' Thesaurus Siluricus,' published, with the aid of a grant 

 from the funds of the Royal Society, in 1868. It is a list of 

 described Silurian fossils, classified both zoologically and in accord- 

 ance with their distribution in time ; and although, no doubt, errors 

 and defects may be detected in it, it will remain for a long time a 

 most useful aid to the student of Silurian Palaeontology, and a 

 monument of the untiring industry of its author. . The same 

 things may be said, perhaps in still stronger terms, of a second 

 publication of the same nature, the ' Thesaurus Devonico-Carbo- 

 niferus,' which appeared in 1878, a wonderful example of industry 

 and research in a man eighty-five years old ; and not content with 

 these labours, Dr. Bigsby, to the close of his life, was hard at work 

 upon a Permian Thesaurus, the MS. of which is left in an ad- 

 vanced state. The last books borrowed for the compilation of this 

 work were only returned to the Society's Library when Dr. Bigsby 

 took finally to his bed. 



The memory of our late lamented Fellow will be worthily kept 

 alive by the Medal which he founded in the year 1877. The 

 greater part of Dr. Bigsby's fortune having accrued to him by 



