Notes

Abstract

GEOLOGISTS will regret to hear of the death of Mr. R. J. L. Guppy at his home in the island of Trinidad on August 5, and within a few days of celebrating his eightieth birthday, Mr. Guppy having been born in London on August 15, 1836. In early life he qualified as a civil engineer, and afterwards travelled through Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. On joining his family in Trinidad in 1859, he took part in the construction of the Cipero Railway, but later becoming interested in the educational work of the colony, he was appointed Chief Inspector of Schools. Mr. Guppy, however, will be better remembered for his researches on the geology of Trinidad and the other West Indian islands. On this subject he contributed upwards of fifty papers, several of which were published by the Geological Society of London. He accumulated a great knowledge of the Tertiary faunas of that region, and did much towards rendering a correlation of the various horizons represented. His earlier memoirs dealt with the San Fernando deposits of Trinidad containing Orbitoidal and other fossils, which at first he regarded as of older Miocene age, but which afterwards he more correctly assigned to the younger Eocene or Lower Oligocene. He was always an ardent student of natural history, being particularly interested in the recent and fossil mollusca, and was also an authority on the rich deposits of petroleum which have made Trinidad so famous. Some years ago he was instrumental in acquiring for the British Museum the second largest known Pleurotomaria, possessing a height of 150 millimetres, which was discovered off the island of Tobago. Mr. Guppy was a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London, and of the New York and Philadelphia Academies of Science. He had served as president of the Scientific Association of Trinidad, and was the first presiding officer of the Royal Victoria Institute Board. Much work yet remains to be accomplished among the Tertiary rocks of Trinidad, as many of the geological horizons are still in confusion and imperfectly understood; but whatever is attempted in the future, there is no doubt that Mr. Guppy's valuable memoirs will always furnish us with an important basis for later investigations on so interesting a subject.