236 IN MRMORTAM : THOMAS HICK, B.A., B SC. (lOND.), A.L.S. 
kirk, Jno. Stubbins, W. Townend, myself and some others, met for 
scientific improvement, and where ' as iron sharpeneth iron ' we 
sharpened our wits in the investigation of scientific problems for the 
love of truth. Hick wrote reviews on scientific books, many of the 
best appearing in the " Leeds Mercury." He thus brought a wide 
range of knowledge, a critical faculty, and a sound judgment which 
was highly esteemed in our little circle. Through the kindness of 
Messrs. Binns, Spencer, Lomax, and others grand opportunities were 
afforded him of studying the fossil flora from the Coal-beds of the 
Hard Bed of Yorkshire, and the upper foot mine of Lancashire. How 
nobly these opportunities were used the list of able memoirs quoted 
at the conclusion of this paper bear witness. 
Dr. F. Arnold Lees writes that 'i Hick's first original paper was 
' On an overlooked point in the Morphology of Ficaria verna.' It 
showed an unusual gift of exact observation, and foreshadowed the 
brilliancy of later papers in the 'Journal of Botany' on the Continuity 
of Protoplasm in the tissues of certain Marine Algse. He was too 
careful and self-critical a worker to produce voluminously." 
Our friend's scientific work may be said broadly to have been 
mainly Botanical (with the exception of three joint Paloeobotanical 
papers) from 1878 to 1890. 
In 1891, he commenced a series of singularly lucid papers on the 
Structure of the Carboniferous Plants, in which he dealt with " The 
present state of our knowledge of the Yorkshire Calamitoe," " Xeno- 
phyton," " Calamostachys Binneyana," The Fruits of Calamites," 
" The Stems of Calamites," " Kaloxylon Hookeri and Lyginodendron 
Oldliamium," "Leaves of Calamites" (a luminous paper), " Rhachi- 
opteris cylindrica," &c. 
If Hick had been more of an egoist, if he had cared to push 
himself, he would probably have been more widely known, and, in a 
sense, have been more successful ; but he cared most to do good 
work that would last. He w^as accurate, thorough, clear, logical in 
all he wrote and taught. Doubtless, had his life been spared, he 
would soon have ranked with the foremost Palseobotanists of Europe. 
His private character was genial, generous, transparent. He was 
an able controversialist, and it needed a clear-headed man to hold his 
