and medicine. He always took great interest in the proceedings of the Botanical Society, and in all that concerned the University of Edinburgh.

Dr FRANÇOIS-SIMON CORDIER, one of the Foreign Corresponding Members of the Society, died suddenly at Algiers on the 13th of June 1874, at the age of seventy-eight. An obituary notice ought to have been given long ere this, but by oversight we only recently received intelligence of his death from Professor Clos of Toulouse, to whom we are indebted for the following particulars of his life:Dr Cordier was born at Brillon (Meuse) on 28th June 1797. He was a zealous student of medicine and natural science, and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Paris. In early life he became a Member of the Medical Society of Vassy, and read a paper on the study of Mycology. In 1826 he published a small work, entitled "Description des Champignons comestibles et vénéneux." In the "Journal de Médecine, Chirurgie et Pharmacie," he translated an article on the effects of Lolium temulentum, containing a record of experiments made with that plant on his own person. He cultivated with equal success entomology, mycology, and medicine. In 1869 he published an illustrated work entitled "Les Champignons de la France." His devotion to science did not prevent him from prosecuting his medical studies. He was a member of the "Commission d'Hygiène." He received a silver medal for his exertions. during the epidemic of cholera in 1832, and after the cholera of 1849 he obtained a bronze medal and the cross of the Legion of Honour. He was medical man to the Bureau de Bienfaisance, 1er Arrondissement, and Inspector of the Salles d'Asile in Paris. In the memorable year 1848 he applied his medical skill to the relief of the wounded on the barriers, often risking his life to accomplish this. He was President of the Botanical Society of France during the year 1872. He left unfinished at the time of his death a popular work on Champignons.

In the "Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France" for 1874 a full account of his life is given by M. Sicard.

JOHN GIBSON, B.A., Professor of Natural Science in the

Ottawa Normal School, was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1875. At the May meeting of that year a useful paper was read, of which he was joint author with his professional coadjutor John Macoun, Esq. of Belleville, entitled "The Rarer Plants of Ontario."* It embraced a selection of the phanerogams up to Compositæ, and we understand formed part of a projected "Flora Canadensis."

Mr Gibson graduated at the Toronto University in 1872, taking the gold medal in natural sciences. He also obtained the M'Murroch medal for his paper on the Geology of the County of Huron," afterwards published in vol. vii. of "The Canadian Naturalist," and was a contributor to the best American and Canadian scientific journals. In the pursuit of his studies he made several long, lonely, and perilous journeys into the unsettled parts of Ottawa. He died in September last, at the age of twenty-five, of typhoid fever, contracted during a scientific tour on the western coast of Lake Superior.

LOUIS VAN HOUTTE, the celebrated nurseryman of Ghent, died on 9th May 1876, aged sixty-six. During the last twelve. years he had been a Foreign Member of our Society. In early life Van Houtte went as a collector to Brazil, subsequently visiting Eastern Africa, and upon his return home became Director of the Brussels Botanic Garden. This appointment he resigned to found that horticultural establishment which, under his energetic management and scientific attainments, has since been universally admitted to be supreme of its kind in Europe, giving employment to about 200 persons, while some idea of the extent of the business transacted may be gathered from the fact that the sale of Camellias alone yearly reached half a million plants. Van Houtte also was editor and proprietor of the "Flore des Serres," an excellent horticultural magazine; he was, moreover, for many years chief magistrate of Ghent, and died deeply regretted by all who knew him personally and socially, or in any official or business capacity.

His liberality to botanic gardens and kindred institutions was strikingly noticeable by the freedom with which he offered selections from his magnificent collection of palms,

* Trans. vol. xii. pp. 300-334.

and therein our Botanic Garden lies under much obligation to him.

THOMAS WILLIAM MAWSON, M.D., elected a Fellow of the Society on 14th January 1869, Professor Balfour had occasion to speak of him in his "Notice of Hieracium collinum," read at our opening meeting in 1868, as "my zealous pupil," who first picked specimens of the plant then described during the class excursion to Selkirk in the preceding June. After Mr Mawson had taken his degree, he went to Surinam as medical superintendent of a plantation" there, and from that neighbourhood he contributed specimens to our Herbarium. Two attacks of fever compelled him to return home, and shortly afterwards a paper that appears in Vol. XI. of the Transactions was read to the Society, giving a useful and detailed account of the ferns of the valley of the Derwent, with which district he was evidently familiar. He subsequently married, and settled at Burringham, near Doncaster, from whence he sent plants and specimens to the Garden and Herbarium to May last. In a letter to Mr Sadler of 20th of that month he remarks: "My practice interferes very much with excursions for collecting plants. . . . . If I come across anything particular I shall send." He died on the 16th of September 1876, at the early age of twenty-six.

JOHN MENZIES was born on 9th October 1831, and was the second son of the Rev. William Menzies, D.D., minister of the parish of Keir, Dumfriesshire, from whom he inherited the love for the science which afterwards led him to become a member of the Botanical Society in January 1865. Educated at the parish school, at Walsie Hall Academy, Closeburn, and the Edinburgh University, he proved a most diligent, persevering, and distinguished student, gaining several prizes, and specially excelling in mathematics. He was about to devote himself to study for the Church, when he was seized by an illness caused by severe and laborious study, which laying him aside for some time, ultimately compelled him, very reluctantly, to abandon his intended profession, and to seek for occupa

tion in another walk of life. During this cessation of his usual studies, botany proved a great solace to him. In 1855 Mr Menzies settled in business in Edinburgh, entering the employment of the British Linen Company's Bank, where he remained till his death. Conscientious to a fault in the discharge of duty, and devoted to the interests of the bank, Mr Menzies spared neither labour nor health to overtake the onerous duties devolving on him. In the early part of 1875 Mr Menzies's health gave serious anxiety to his friends. A lengthened holiday spent in Perthshire, during which his love of botany proved strong and cheering to him, enabled him to return in apparently improved health to town; but a few days thereafter he was seized with illness, which rapidly proved fatal, and he died on 21st August 1875, mourned by a large circle of friends, and leaving a widow, to whom he was married only fourteen months before.

WILLIAM GRAHAM M'IVOR, for thirty years an Associate, was the son of a farmer at Dollar. He obtained a thorough horticultural training at the Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, and afterwards at the Royal Gardens, Kew. Whilst at Kew in 1847 he published a pocket herbarium of British Hepaticæ, which received the commendation and recommendation of Sir W. J. Hooker. The Marquis of Tweeddale, when Governor of Madras, conceived the idea of forming a Botanic Garden on the Nilgiri Hills, where unusual advantages of climate, soil, and situation promised success to the acclimatisation of plants from China, Australia, and the Cape. In 1848 M'Ivor was selected for this charge by Sir William Hooker and Dr Royle. By his industry and artistic skill a bare hillside was by degrees converted into a most lovely garden, and the objects of the institution have been attained for improving indigenous and naturalising exotic plants.

M'Ivor's name will always be identified with the successful introduction of Cinchona into India. The young plants, which were conveyed by Mr Clements Markham from their habitat in Peru to Malabar, were entrusted to Mr M'Ivor, and to him is due the credit of having raised Cinchona culture from a first experiment to an established

success. The full value of this most important introduction has yet to be realised.

Naturally of strong constitution and active habits, he was throughout his career in India of twenty-eight years. unwearied and happy in his work, in which he took a pride; and his unexpected death on 8th June 1876 was cause of great regret to all classes of Europeans in his adopted home, and most of the chief officers of Government attended his funeral.

The late GILES MUNBY of The Holt, Farnham, Surrey, whose death was recorded in April last, was well known to most of the botanists of the day. He was one of the original founders of our Society in 1836, and continued to interest himself in its doings and surroundings up to his decease.

Mr Munby was born in the city of York, in the year 1813, and was the youngest son of Joseph Munby, Esq., of that city, solicitor, and under-sheriff of the county. His parents dying when he was very young, his early life was spent chiefly at school. As a boy he showed a great taste for the study of botany and entomology. Being designed for the medical profession, he was placed with Mr Brown, a surgeon in York; and during the first fearful outbreak of cholera in 1832 was constantly in attendance upon the poor who came under Mr Brown's supervision in his district, and showed wonderful care and attention to them, without the slightest fear on his own account. He afterwards became a student in the Medical School of Edinburgh, where he obtained a gold medal from Dr Graham for the best class herbarium. From Edinburgh he went to "walk the hospitals" in London, after which he proceeded to Paris, and thence to Montpellier, where he passed his examination for M.D., but never took up his diploma. Whilst at Paris Mr Munby became acquainted with the present Professor of Metallurgy in the School of Mines, our respected Fellow, Dr Percy, F.R.S., and mutual love of botany led these two young students into close friendship. They together attended the instructions and "Herborisations" of Adrian de Jussieu, subsequently (1836) making in company a prolonged botanical tour in the south of France. Many plants gathered during these excursions