244 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 
he published a large work on " British Mining ; a Treatise on the 
Metalliferous Mines in the United Kingdom," in which he says : — 
''Until 1845 no successful effort had been attempted to obtain 
reliable returns of the quantities of metalliferous ores obtained 
annually from the mines of the United Kingdom." To obtain these 
returns he devoted all his tact and energy. There was at that time 
no law to compel owners of mines to give returns of their production. 
It was with this object that he repeatedly visited this Society, and 
papers will be found, referred to on other pages, in which he gives 
the result of his investigations in the coal district of the West Riding 
of Yorkshire. So far as this district was concerned he received 
every help and encouragement from the members of this Society, as 
w^ell as other large coal owners in the district. In 1854 Mr. Hunt 
was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was the author of 
the " Poetry of Science ; or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of 
Nature ;" the first edition published in 1846, and afterwards followed 
by two others. The work is full of poetic imagery, and exhibits high 
imaginative power. In 1849 he wrote " Panthea, the Spirit of 
Nature," a work which has been characterised as philosophy and 
poetry finely blended, the grand truths and noble sentiments expressed 
in it being full of the language of beauty and eloquence. In addition 
to many papers on photogTaphy he edited three editions of " Ure's 
Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines." His personal 
characteristics rendered him deservedly popular. He was fluent of 
speech, courteous in bearing, and exhibited an unvarying readiness 
to place his knowledge and influence at the services of others, and at 
the meetings of this Society his presence was always appreciated and 
cordially welcomed. 
Robert Hunt died on the 17th October, at his house, 26, St. 
Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea, London, in the eighty-first year of his 
age, and was buried in Brompton Cemetery. 
The succeeding biographical notice of Mr. Henry Denny is contri- 
buted by his son, Professor Alfred Denny, of Firth College, Sheffield. 
Henry Denny, A.L.S. 
During the first thirty years of its existence, the Yorkshire 
Geological and Polytechnic Society had few, if any, more devoted 
