DAVID FORBES, (1828-1876), F.R.S., an accomplished traveller, mineralogist, metallurgist, chemist, and writer on chemical geology, brother of Professor Edward Forbes, was born at Douglas, Isle of Man, and received his early education there and at Brentwood in Essex. When a boy he manifested " an enthusiastic disposition as regards science," and at the age of fourteen had already acquired a remarkable knowledge of chemistry. This sub-ject he studied at the university of Edinburgh, and he was still young when he was appointed superintendent of the mining and metallurgical works at Espedal in Norway. Subsequently he became a partner in the firm of Evans & Aiken, nickel-smelters, of Birmingham, and in that capacity visited Chili, Bolivia, and Peru. He died in London, December 5, 1876. Micro-petrology and chemical geology owe much to the researches of David Forbes. Besides reports for the Iron and Steel Institute, of which, during the last years of his life, he was foreign secretary, he wrote upwards of 50 papers on scientific subjects, among which are the following:—" The Action of Sulphurets on Metallic Silicates at High Temperatures," Rep. Brit. Assoc., 1855, pt. ii. p. 62; "The Belations of the Silurian and Metamorphic Bocks of the south of Norway," lb., p. 82; " The Causes producing Foliation in Bocks," Joum. Geol. Soc, xi., 1855 ; " The Chemical Composition of the Silurian and Cambrian Limestones," Phil. Mag., xiii. pp. 365-373, 1857; "The Geology of Bolivia and Southern Peru," Joum. Geol. Soc, xvii. pp. 7-62, 1861.