ISI2. ] Account of the late Mr^ William Martin^ F, L, S, 559 
amongst his manuscripts. In an inter- 
ieaved copy of the first volume of Ber- 
kenhout^s Outlines, presented to him 
by Bolton, we find lie has made many 
additions to the text, and has made seve¬ 
ral drawings of the ditferenc classes 
of animals, particularly of birds and 
fishes. 
He also projected a third work on the 
River Fishes of Great Britain, to he il¬ 
lustrated with coloured plates, which his 
friend, whose name we have so frequent¬ 
ly had occasion to mention, was of 
opinion would be well received. Not¬ 
withstanding this encouragement, he 
proceeded no farther than to make a few 
coloured drawings of fishes, from the ex¬ 
ecution of which there is reason to be¬ 
lieve the w'ork might have been produc¬ 
tive of some emolument to him. Whe¬ 
ther he relinquished this design on ac¬ 
count of the unavoidable expense, and 
an apprehension of the uncertainty of 
being reimbursed by this publication j or 
whether he had now come to a determi¬ 
nation to confine his attention to his 
works on Extraneous Fossils, cannot at 
present be ascertained. But, after the 
year 1795, he has made no mention of 
publishing on Zoology to Bolton, as far 
as we can collect from the letters of the 
latter. 
He had collected shells, and had paid 
great attention to conchology, a subject 
particularly necessary to those who en¬ 
gage in the study of petrifactions. He 
had also made a collection of insects, 
most probably with the view of prepar¬ 
ing himself for understanding the genus 
Entomolithiis, 
IVlr. M. seems to have paid less at¬ 
tention to the vegetable than the animal 
kingdom. He did not engage much, at 
any period of his life, in practical bota¬ 
ny. He had, however, carefully studied 
the Ehdosophia Bolanica of Linnjeus, 
and has availed himself of the excellent 
rules laid down in that work, in com¬ 
posing his elementary book on Extra¬ 
neous Fossils, or Relics; tlie latter of 
wliich lie considers as tlie most appro? 
priate name* The ferns er^gaged a 
greater share of Ins attention than any 
other tribe of plants, the knowledge of 
diem being more connected witli his 
principal study of petrifactions. Except 
the ferns and grasses, few plants can 
fee recongnised in the petrified state. 
At what period he first began to study 
rdneralogy, and to turn his attention 
particularly to geology, has nut 
been exactly ascertained, but most pro¬ 
bably a considerable time anterior to the 
year 1789 ; for, in a letter addressed to 
Mr. Bolton in that year, he mentions 
his drawings and engravings, and his in¬ 
tended publication on Derbyshire Petri¬ 
factions. His attention was in some de¬ 
gree directed to mineralogy by his occa¬ 
sional visits to his much-esteemed friend 
Mr, JMiils, at Macclesfield, which afford¬ 
ed him an opportunity of examining a 
good collection of minerals, and of con¬ 
versing un that subject. The idea of 
publishing tinted plates of the minerals 
of Derbyshire, wyh short descriptions of 
them, originated in his having seen a 
book of that kind, in the possession of 
Mr. Mills, which was published at Nu¬ 
remberg, in 1753, by Schmeidel. His 
observation, on seeing the bonk, was, that 
he conceived he could produce better 
resemblances of minerals, and he cer¬ 
tainly did succeed very well in liis first 
attempts to delineate them, and was 
particularly successful, at that time, in 
his representation of the crystallised 
Galena. 
The first number of his work, entitled 
“ Figures and Descriptions of Petrifac¬ 
tions, collected in Derbyshire/’ was 
printed in the year 1793. The figures 
were all drawn, etched, and coloured, 
by his owu hand. This work was ori¬ 
ginally intended to form a part of a ge¬ 
neral history of Derbyshire fossils, in 
which lie had engaged, in conjunction 
with Mr. Watson, of Bakeweli, who pos¬ 
sessed a valuable collection of native 
and extraneous fossils of that county. 
By unforeseen circumstances the publi¬ 
cation of the original work was, for soiree 
years, deferred, and at length relinquish¬ 
ed. The History of the Native Fossils, 
which was Mr. Watson’s department, 
has not been published, but he still pro¬ 
mises a work on the mineralogy of Der¬ 
byshire. 
From the conditions, printed in the 
first number of Mr. Martin’s Petrifac¬ 
tions, it appears, tliat the work w'as to 
be completed ip fourteen numbers. But 
Ife proceeded no farther tlian the fifth 
number, which was printed in August, 
1756. He had, at this time, gained so 
much additional information, and his 
view.s of the subject were so much 
changed, that he thought it better to 
pause here, and reprint the letter-press. 
The first sheet of the work, as it now 
stands, was not printed till May 1802. 
This was the first attempt, that had 
been 
