I.—Eminent Living Geologists

Abstract

William Boyd Dawkins, who has recently resigned the Professorship of Geology and Palæontology at the Manchester University, belongs to the comparatively rare, and now dwindling, group of naturalists who have extended their energies across the borderlands of their main subjects, and have become recognized as authorities also in neighbouring territories. If Boyd Dawkins had not been famous in the realm of Geology, he would still have been a prominent figure among anthropologists and archæologists; and if he had not established for himself a name among those whose researches have enriched the data and philosophy of science, he would still have been prominent as a teacher, an organizer, and a public-spirited citizen. Forty years ago, when there were two small collections of natural-history objects in Manchester, the late Professor Huxley nominated young Dawkins as the man with the requisite amount of energy, business capacity, and scientific knowledge to organize a central institution, which, now, under the control of the new University of Manchester, is an institution of importance as much to the student who requires reference materials as to the general public. Although the Manchester Museum has now attained dimensions requiring the superintendence by specialists in the three main branches of Natural History, the organization is the direct outcome of its first Curator, through whose influence mainly the money required for buildings has been obtained, and through whose attraction unique collections of materials have been secured.