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5n /ll>emortam. 
JOSEPH LOMAS. 
It is a sorrowful task to have to record the loss of a dear 
friend and excellent geologist, cut off in the prime of health 
and vigour by a railway accident at El Uchain, in Algeria, on 
the 17th December, 1908. 
Mr. Lomas came of a family long-established in Derbyshire 
in the neighbourhood of Bugsworth. His school career was 
marked by a long series of successes, resulting in his entering 
the Royal School of Mines and Xormal School of Science as 
a Teacher in Training, and it was here that, as fellow-students 
under Huxley and Judd, a lifelong and intimate friendship 
was formed between him and the present writer. They passed 
through the courses together, and their names were never sepa- 
rated in the examination lists. 
Upon the completion of his career at the schools, Mr. Lomas 
took up the position of Lecturer in Science under the Liverpool 
School Board, and subsequently assumed the full control of 
their organisation for science teaching. Besides this, he gave 
courses of lectures at University College, which were continued 
down to the time of his death. He entered fully into the scien- 
tific life of the city, and his fresh enthusiasm and high ability 
as a teacher have had a most important influence in stimulating 
interest in geology throughout the district. The Liverpool 
Geological Society elected him to the presidential chair in 1896, 
and he was selected as the geologist best qualified to again occupy 
that position in the year 1909, when the Society would celebrate 
its jubilee. 
The British Association, of which Mr. Lomas had been 
a very active member for several years, appointed him the 
chief secretary of the Geological Section, and it is safe to say 
that it will not be easy to find so energetic, able, and generally 
popular a geologist to succeed him. 
Mr. Lomas's original work has been of a very varied charac- 
ter, including work upon the recent marine polyzoa, as well 
