Boyal Society of Edinhicrgh, 299 



Nesbit, Hod. Lord Ormidale, David Page, Esq., Dr A. Peddie, 

 James Sanderson, Esq., Deputy-Inspector of Hospitals, Dr John 

 A. Smith, Dr Murray Thomson, Dr J. Gr. Wilson, Dr John Young. 



Our roll, therefore, stands thus : — The number of Eellows in 

 1862 was 258, of which we have lost by death 6, by resignation 2 = 8, 

 leaving 250. To which add the new Fellows, 25, making the 

 Avhole number of the Fellows of our Society 275, a larger number 

 than has appeared on the list for many years. 



I am enabled, chieiiy through the active kindness of our Secre- 

 taries, to offer a few notices of the members we have lost, during 

 the past Session. 



EoBERT Allan, son of Mr Thomas Allan, a banker in Edinburgh, 

 a Fellow of the Society, and for many years Curator of its Museum 

 and Library, and well known as an early and successful collector of a 

 fine cabinet of minerals, was born in 1806, and educated at the High 

 School and University of Edinburgh. He inherited his father's taste 

 for minerals, and while still a youth followed out the study in 

 extended travels in company witli Professor Haidinger, who intro- 

 duced him to the acquaintance and to the cabinets of all the chief 

 foreign mineralogists — among others, Berzelius and Mitscherlich. 



Mr Allan passed advocate in 1829, but never practised, and was 

 admitted a Fellow of this Society in 1832. He was also a member 

 of the G-eological Society of London. 



Mr Allan published in 1834 a Manual of Mineralogy, the classi- 

 fication founded on the external character or natural historical 

 arrangement. 



In 1837 he edited a fourth edition of " Phillips' Mineralogy," 

 in which he added notices of 150 new minerals. 



On his return from an excursion to the volcanic district of Italy and 

 Sicily, Mr Allan presented to this Society a set of specimens of vol- 

 canic rocks of the Lipari Isles, with a descriptive notice, an abstract 

 of which is in our Transactions, of date 16th January 1831. 



He communicated an account of a visit to the G-eysers and Hecla 

 to the British Association at Glasgow, in 1855. 



Mr Allan died in consequence of a fall in his garden. 



Beriah Botfield was of a Shropshire family, in which county 

 his grandfather, Thomas Botfield, made his large fortune as a 

 manager and lessee of the Dawlay Collieries. Thomas's third son 

 inherited Norton Hall, near Daventry, in Northamptonshire, and 

 lived the life of an English sporting squire. He married Charlotte, 

 daughter of William Withering, M.D., F.K.S., the author of " The 

 Botanical Arrangement of British Plants." The only child of that 

 marriage was Beriah, the subject of the present notice, who, in 

 addi'':ion to his father's property, inherited the estates of both his 

 uncles, and had become before his death a man of very large fortune. 



Beriah was born 5th March 1807, and succeeded his father in ] 813. 

 He was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, where he took 

 his Bachelor's degree in 1828. 



After leaving Oxford he made a tour in the Highlands of Scot- 



