WILLIAM WHITAKER.
95
and members of the Club will recollect how, so recently as
May, 1923, he conducted our excursion to Vange, at the age of
87, betraying no sign of failing strength or diminished energy.
In this connection it is interesting to recall, as he once told the
writer, that in youthful days he was considered as showing signs
of consumption, and was warned by the doctors that an open-air
life was essential to his existence. Truly, "threatened lives
last long."
To the end he retained the freshness of youth in a remarkable
degree. Old in years, he was yet easily the youngest member
of the company, joking and "chaffing" with the unrestrained-
ness of a boy. Like Peter Pan, he never grew up ! He was an
irrepressible punster ; only recently, whilst sitting helpless in
his invalid's chair, he told the writer, with evident glee, how,
at the Liverpool Meeting of the British Association, which was
the last scientific function he was destined to attend, he had
been able to work off a borrowed joke from Punch on the architect
to the new Cathedral there.
This jocularity of expression was not confined to conversation ;
he wrote as he talked. His letters were invariably couched in
the most unconventional language.
It is impossible too much to emphasize the lovable nature
of the man, his abiding charm ; to those who knew him and
enjoyed the privilege of intercourse with him he was never the
learned scientist but the familiar friend. In his company it
was not always easy to bear in mind that the genial individual
with whom one talked on terms of jovial familiarity, who was
as ready to take as to give a joke or repartee, was the famous
geologist of world-wide renown, who had been a notable con-
temporary and co-worker with the giants of British geology,
Murchison, Lyell, Ramsey, Jukes, Prestwich, and others, in his
earlier years. There was no stiffness about him : the dignity
of age and of long experience was never insisted on ; as a result
he secured not only the deep respect of those with whom he came
into relation, but their sincere affection. He will be missed by
many and mourned by all. Of him we may surely say with
Job:-
"With the ancient is wisdom ; and in length of days under-
standing."
The portrait which accompanies this notice was one which