Obituanj — William Harris. 
381 
only prepared to affirrn that the Huronian rocks on the Lake of the 
Woods are in great part volcanic, but putting forward tbe tkeory 
that the Huronian formation is largely composed of metamorphosed 
contemporaneous igneous matter. This is the view to which I was 
myself led by niy study of these rocks in the fiekl, and I published 
this opinion in a paper on the Geology of the North Shore of Lake 
Superior some years ago (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxix.). In 
this paper I expressed the opinion that the great masses of “talcose” 
and “ chloritic ” slates which, togetlier with interbedded traps, make 
up the greater part of the Huronian formation between Lake 
Superior and Lake Skabendowan, are “truly of the nature of bedded 
felspathic askes; ” and I also drew attention to the singulär resem- 
blance which they present to the Borrowdale series, or Green Slates 
and Porphyries, of the North of England. It affords me, therefore, 
much pleasure to find that these views, at that time quite unsup- 
ported, should kave been corroborated by the wide opportunities for 
observation and the extended experience of Mr. Dawson. 
Uxited College, St. Andrews, H. Alleyne Nicholson. 
Juli/ Ith, 1877. 
OZBITTTJAJ»"5T. 
WILLIAM HARRIS, ESQ., F.G.S. 
Bokn 1797. Died 1877. 
With regret we announce the death of William Harris, Esq., 
F.G.S., on the 13th May, aged SO, at Charing, in Kent, where he 
had resided for many years. He was greatly esteemed by a large 
circle of friends for bis genial disposition and real pliilanthropy ; 
and he obtained deserved reputation for bis untiring researches 
among the fossils of the Chalk, and into the geological history and 
structure of the country around him. He was elected a Fellow of 
the Geological Society of London in 1839. After a long life of 
useful activity bis kealtli failed him eight or nine years ago, and he 
gradually lost bis power of moving about and attending to business, 
as well as bis interest in those scientific pursuits which were formerly 
bis pleasure. He had for many years assiduously collected the 
organic remains found in the Chalk-pits of the neighbouring hills, 
especially the Sponges and Fishes. Of the former he communicated 
many to Mr. J. Toulmin Smith, who figured and described the 
Ventriculidce of the Chalk in 1848. • Of the Fishes he collected and 
prepared a great many, but they were never classified. The 
enormous numbers of Entomostraca, Polyzoa, and Foraminifera, 
togetlier with small Brackiopods, Serpulje. fragments of Corals, 
Encrinites, etc., which Mr. Harris obtained, by careful and patient 
search. from the Chalk and Chalk-marl, were freely and liberally 
distribnted to bis friends, and to otliers interested in palasontology. 
Many a one has been instigated to take up geological studies, with 
microscope at liome and hammer abroad, after participating in some 
of these minute organic treasures from “ the Charing Detritus,” as 
the disintegrated Chalk-marl of the locality was termed by our 
lamented friend. 
