OBITUARY NOTICES.
57
small an area. Bones of animals which are now only met with
in different and widely separated parts of the world are mingled
with those of extinct species of elephant and rhinoceros and
with the primitive flint implements of the men who were their
contemporaries.
What the makers of these implements were like, however,
is quite unknown, as no human remains have ever been dis-
covered, but in point of culture they could not have differed
much from the more primitive of existing savages.
[I have drawn all the above figures to actual size, and have given the
Essex specimens represented to the Essex Field Club's Museum at Stratford.]
OBITUARY NOTICES.
THE LATE GEORGE JAMES SYMONS, F.R.S.
[With Portrait, Plate II]
It was with sincere regret that all students of science heard of the death
on March 10th, 1900, of one of the greatest meteorologists that England has
ever produced. By the death of Mr. Symons the Essex Field Club lost a
highly esteemed Honorary Member, one always willing to give advice and
assistance in the work of the Club, while his genial personality and stores of
information were thoroughly appreciated on those occasions when his
numerous employments permitted him to attend our meetings.
His co-adjutor and fellow-worker for nearly 30 years, Mr. H. Sowerby
Wallis, has most kindly furnished us with the published memoirs of Mr.
Symons from which to select materials for this notice. We have chosen that
in The Times for March 13th, 1900, as the basis of the following, supplemented
by information given in the Quarterly four: Roy. Meteorological Society (April,
1900) and in Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, which was founded by
its editor and proprietor in 1866. We have to thank the Council of the
Royal Meteorological Society and the Secretary, Mr. W. Marriott, for the
cliche of the excellent portrait accompanying this notice.
George James Symons was born in London on August 6th, 1838, the only
child of Joseph and Georgina Symons, of Pimlico. He was educated at St.
Peter's Collegiate School, Eaton Square, and by a private tutor in Leicester-
shire. From his boyhood he exhibited a love of natural science, and it is said
that he offered his services as an assistant at the age of 16 to Mr. James
Glaisher, who, however, attempted to dissuade him from pursuing scientific
investigation on the ground that it did not pay. Symons, nevertheless,
persisted in his aim. At the age of 18 he joined the Meteorological Society,
which Mr. Glaisher had founded, and in the course of another 12 months
found employment as one of the Registrar General's meteorological reporters,
an office which he continued to hold to the time of his death. For a few