William Crawford Williamson's early life was therefore strongly influenced by his father's tastes and friendship with William Smith, John Phillips, and William Bean; but young Williamson had his own way to make in life. After spending some years at school in Yorkshire and in France, he was apprenticed in his sixteenth year to a Scarborough surgeon, Mr. Thomas Weddell, with whom he remained from April, 1832, to September, 1835, when he removed to Manchester. The versatility and indomitable energy of Williamson were exhibited during the drudgery of his apprenticeship, for in that period of his life, as recorded in the scientific journals of the day, he wrote at least four papers, each of which represented a different line of study. Conchology was illustrated by "A notice of the localities, habits, characteristics, and synonyms of a rare British species of Mytilus," published in 1834, in the Magazine of Natural History, Vol. VII. Geology was represented in the same year by a paper published in the second volume of the Proceedings of the Geological Society, as well as by the contributions he made to the Fossil Flora of Lindley and Hutton. Archæology also attracted him, as about this time he published his first and last paper in this field, viz., "A memoir on the contents of the celebrated tumulus at Gristhorpe," which was reprinted during his later years. Ornithology, too, was closely studied during his apprenticeship, as he published, in 1836, in Vol. IV. of the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, "Notes on the appearance of rare birds in the vicinity of Scarborough." This range of research was remarkable for so young an investigator; but it prepared him for the office which introduced him to the activities of Manchester life, viz., the curatorship of the Museum of the Manchester Natural History Society, in the building in Peter Street now occupied by the Young Men's

Christian Association. He held this office from 1835 to 1838, and in these early years of his residence in this city he was invited by successive Councils of our Society to attend its meetings, a privilege he regularly used and highly valued. In the autumn of 1838 he entered himself as a student in the Pine Street Medical School of this city. He completed his professional studies in the London University College and Hospital, and in 1840 was enrolled a member and licentiate of the College of Surgeons. In January, 1844, he began to practise medicine in Wilton Street, Oxford Road, and shortly afterwards was appointed active surgeon to the Chorltonupon-Medlock Dispensary. The engrossing nature of a surgeon's life leaves little leisure for outside studies, but the number and the character of the geological and other papers which he gave to the world during this period of his life were not less remarkable than those which originated during his apprenticeship. In 1836 he published in the Proceedings of the Geological Society (Vol. II.), a paper "On the distribution of organic remains in the oolitic formations on the coast of Yorkshire"; in 1840 and 1842 similar papers on Yorkshire fossils, "From the lower lias to the Bath oolite inclusive," in the Transactions of the Geological Society, Vols. V. and VI.; in 1836, "On the Limestones found in the vicinity of Manchester," in Vol. IX. of the Philosophical Magazine"; in 1837, "On Fossil Fishes in the Lancashire coalfield," in Vol. II. of the Proceedings of the Geological Society, followed in 1837 and 1839 by allied papers, "On the affinity of some Fossil Scales of Fish from the Lancashire coal-measures with those of the recent Salmonida," in the Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XI., and "On the Fossil Fishes of the Yorkshire and Lancashire coalfields," in Vol. III. of the Proceedings of the Geological Society. At the Liverpool meeting of the

British Association, in 1837, he contributed a section of the carboniferous strata of Western Lancashire from its highest beds at Ardwick down nearly to the millstone grit. About the same time he contributed "A notice of two hitherto undescribed species of Radiaria, from the marlstones of Yorkshire " in Vol. IX. of the

Magazine of Natural History. This is by no means an exhaustive list of his contributions to science, but it is a fine record of the work of a rising surgeon done before he had passed the twenty-sixth anniversary of his birthday.

About this period of his life he turned his attention to a group of studies which required the aid of a compound microscope. His instrument, far from being "fearfully and wonderfully made," like so many modern instruments, was a monocular of simple construction, but he worked with it up to the close of his life, and it was his constant companion in working out the life-history of sponges, diatoms, foraminifera, and the plants of the coal-measures. In after years its owner made it the text of many a homily for the benefit of his students, enforcing what could be done with a simple instrument and limited means, if only the eye that was using it knew how to interpret the structures which came within its field of view. One of the earliest papers giving the results of the use of the microscope appears to have been that published in 1845, in the eighth volume, Second Series, of our own Memoirs, "On some of the microscopical objects found. in the mud of the Levant, and other deposits, with remarks on the mode of formation of calcareous and infusorial siliceous rocks." This was followed in 1846 by one "On the real nature of the minute bodies in flints, supposed to be sponge spicules," which is printed in Vol. XVII. of the Annals of Natural History. Two years later he published a paper on a diatom in the same. journal, “On a new British species of Campylodiscus."

In the same year (1848) appeared, in Vol. I., Annals of Natural History, a contribution "On the recent British species of the genus Lagena." This latter paper, and the previous one on Levant mud, with other papers on foraminifera published in the Transactions of the Microscopical Society, were preparing the way for his work on "The British Foraminifera," which was published by the Ray Society in 1858. In these investigations of the structure and life-history of these organisms, perhaps the most fascinating paper was that on Levant mud, and it proved how, in the hands of an enthusiast like Williamson, a whole Mediterranean of interest could be evolved from a spoonful of silt; the memoir, too, was adequately illustrated, and although it was the source whence the information of many a subsequent paper was derived, it was rarely referred to. The writer of these lines well remembers, when he was the honorary librarian of the Society, a visit paid by an American to Manchester, for the express purpose of consulting this particular paper, and of copying some of the drawings which illustrate it, and how the stranger was sent on his way rejoicing with a copy of the volume which contained it. But what must have been Williamson's own delight in his first investigations, when every pinch of dust revealed some previously unseen beauty of form or structure ?

The late Professor Williamson became an ordinary member of the Society in 1851, and was elected an honorary member in 1893. He was President of the Society during the two sessions 1884-85 and 1885-86; he was a Vice-President during the sessions 1863-64, 1874-75, and 1888-89 to 1891-92, and he served as a member of the Council during the sessions 1865-66 to 1871-72, and 1877-78. He was one of 10 members of the Society who, on the 23rd December, 1858, applied to the Council for the formation of the Microscopical and Natural History

He

Section of the Society, and was its first President. served the Section as President from 1859 to 1862, and in 1872, 1873, 1886, and 1887; as Vice-President in 1863, 1874, and from 1888 to 1891; and as member of its Council in the years 1864 to 1871, and 1877 to 1885.

He was twice married; first in 1842 to Miss Sophia Wood, daughter of the Rev. Robert Wood, and afterwards, in 1874, to Miss Annie Copley Heaton, niece of Sir Henry Mitchell. He leaves two sons and two daughters.

In private life he was a staunch friend, and a genial host and companion. During the last meeting of the British Association in Manchester his house in Egerton Road, Fallowfield, was the rendezvous of the many foreign and British botanists who attended that meeting. When these latter were photographed, by common consent he, with his friend, the late Dr. Asa Gray, formed the centre round whom they grouped themselves. He had gifts of language, which enabled him to marshal his facts and arguments with great perspicuity, so that his hearers. were never at a loss to understand his meaning. The same clearness of thought characterises his writings. His habit was to go directly to the heart of any subject he was discussing. His viva voce summaries of his communications to the Society were models of simplicity and exactness of expression. To these gifts he added a singularly graphic power of delineating on the blackboard the salient features of any object he was describing. His class-rooms at college, and the walls of his home, were covered with his own beautiful drawings of animal and vegetable life, and of scenery. His great skill in the delineation of the structure of the fossil plants of the coalmeasures is seen in the admirable and copious illustrations of that group in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. C. B.