4 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
— a scheme which was realised in 1873. Having made his mark in the 
Municipal Council and gained the confidence of the citizens, he was 
subsequently chosen by them as one of the parliamentary representatives, 
and for over thirty years remained a powerful leader of the liberal party 
in the Austrian Parliament. His political labours do not seem to have 
interfered with his geological work, which is represented by an astonishing 
number of memoirs and books. One of the latter, dealing with the origin 
of the Alps, published in 1875, is especially worthy of note for its grasp of 
detail and its suggestive generalisations. Ten years later appeared the 
first volume of his famous Antlitz der Erde — a work on which he laboured 
until nearly the close of his life, the fourth volume having been completed 
in 1910. This monumental book will undoubtedly take a foremost place 
amongst geological classics. It represents the labours of a long life, and 
is remarkable for its masterly resume of all that had hitherto been ascer- 
tained as to the geological structure of every land. His knowledge of the 
literature of the subject was indeed unique, and the lucidity with which 
he marshals his evidence is admirable. But what constitutes the chief 
glory of the Antlitz is the magnificent sweep of its generalisations. We 
may not always agree with his conclusions, but their suggestiveness is un- 
deniable — and one may safely say that in all time coming his work will be 
a source of inspiration to every earnest student of geology. It is pleasant 
to know that the value of Suess’s labours was abundantly recognised in 
his lifetime by all civilised countries. Learned societies everywhere vied 
with each other in showering honours upon him. He was elected an 
Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in 1903 was awarded 
its highest distinction — the Copley Medal. He became an Honorary Fellow 
of our Society in 1905. He died on 26th April 1914. 
For the following notice I am indebted to Professor Sampson, Royal 
Observatory : — 
George William Hill was one of the most celebrated mathematicians 
of the past generation. His most original work relates to the theory of 
the moon’s motion. Long as this problem has been handled, it has always 
presented features that baffled analysis, significant as they are of the 
general problem of Three Bodies. If this problem is now gradually taking 
a more lucid shape, the credit is largely due to Hill, in whose works, as 
Poincare remarked, ‘‘ il esb permis d’apercevoir le gerrne de la plupart des 
progres que la Science a fait depuis,” — though we cannot adopt this 
judgment without recalling the achievement of Darwin in the same field. 
Besides great force and originality. Hill’s work is marked by extreme 
