Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/522

 488 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. of Botany in Anderson's College Medical School, Glasgow. At the time of his death he was President of the Natural History Society of Glasgow, and an office-hearer of most of the scientific institutions in that city. A few years ago he edited and published an enlarged edition of Kennedy's Clydesdale Flora, He has written numerous papers on Botany, many of which have been published in the Proceedings of the Glasgow Natural History Society. He was specially interested in Cryptogamic Botany, and was a recognized authority on mycology. In private he was one of the most genial and amiable of men, and his loss will be keenly felt by a very wide circle of friends. — D. A. B. A Botanic Gaeden has just been founded in New York, of which Dr. N. L. Britton has been appointed Director ; Prof. L. M. Under- wood succeeds him at Columbia University. The first volume of the new Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States has just made its appearance ; we shall have more to say of it later. A "Flora of our Ten-mile Kadius," by Mr. J. Hepworth, is appearing in the Rochester Naturalist. Thomas Hick, B.A., B. Sc. (Lond.), A.L.S., who died on July 31st at the residence of his son, Dr. Hick, at Bradford, was born at Leeds on May 5th, 1840. Through an accident involving the loss of several fingers of his left hand, he was disabled from following his original employment, and this happily led to his eventual devotion to Botany professionally. After having filled various scholastic ofiices, including that of head-master of the Koyal Lancastrian School, Leeds, he became Assistant-Lecturer in Botany at Owens College, Manchester, in 1885. Before this date, however, he had done capital botanical work, notably papers in this Journal for 1884 and 1885 on protoplasmic continuity in Algae — papers which would have made the reputation of a young man from an English University (not London). Gradually Hick became more and more drawn into fossil botany, partly from the influence of Prof. Williamson, with whom he worked in great amity. When Prof. Williamson resigned, Hick continued to work loyally with Prof. Weiss and to do the good teaching work at Owens College which made him so popular with his colleagues and students. There was, however, more than good teaching — there was the open-hearted, enthusiastic, and genial nature of a thoroughly good man at work in all he did, and his methods of dealing with his men were always the outcome of this fine character. He lived a good, natural, honest, and consistent life, if ever any man did, and faced his troubles with fine resolution, remaining steadfast to his aims throughout. Such men need no memorial while their friends live ; but with a view to perpetuating his memory in an appropriate way, a Committee has been formed (including Mr. Cosmo Melvill, Mr. Leo Grindon, and Prof. Hickson, with Prof. Weiss as Secretary) to raise a sum of money for the purchase of his collection of fossil plants and part of his library, and to deposit them in the Manchester Museum as the Hick collection. Prof. Weiss (The Owens College Manchester) will receive sub- scriptions. — G. M.