ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COUNCIL 261

JOHN CHEAR died on 20 March 1967, aged seventy-three. He was aBarrister-at-Law, and served in that capacity in the Inland RevenueDepartment. He was a well-known personality in his home town ofWelwyn Garden City, where his first public activity was the formationof a Workers' Educational Association group. He came into prominencesoon afterwards when he led the campaign for the conservation of Sher­rards Park Wood. He was subsequently elected to the Welwyn GardenCity Urban Council and then to the Hertfordshire County Council. Heserved on educational committees and as Governor of Schools.

Throughout his life he had a consuming interest in photography,natural history and geology. After his retirement from the Civil Servicehe travelled far and wide in pursuit of these interests. Many of his filmsof wild life were televised and he was a very active lecturer to localsocieties. He was a well-known figure at the Association's Long FieldMeetings, with his camera pointing at everything of interest. He wasexpert at getting good results under adverse conditions, and a specialitywas the close-up photography of hand-specimens in the field.

He was Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Photographic Society forseveral years and had a very comprehensive knowledge of law and financerelating to scientific societies. There was nothing he liked better after aday in the field than a good discussion on such matters. Although he wastoo busy with other activities to accept nomination for the Council of theAssociation, his advice was always freely at the disposal of the Officers.

H.M.M.

CHARLES FINDLAY DAVIDSON, O.B.E., D.SC., F.R.S.E., M.I.M.M., Professor ofGeology at St. Andrews University, died suddenly at his home at Cuparon 1November 1967,aged fifty-six. He is survived by his wifeand four sons.

He was educated at the Morgan Academy, Dundee and at St. AndrewsUniversity, where he graduated with first-class honours in geology andmineralogy in 1933. On appointment to the Geological Survey in 1934(inwhich year he joined the Association), Davidson was allocated to Museumduties as Assistant to the Curator. The new Geological Museum, to beopened to the public a year later, was then in course of arrangement.Davidson was charged with the layout of the popular exhibits on physio­graphical geology and later became responsible for the curation of thedisplays on the geology of Scotland and on various aspects of economicgeology.

During the war, Davidson took charge of a small military geology unitset up to answer enquiries from the Services on the engineering geologyand mineral resources of foreign territories. This provided informationrelating to every considerable military operation in Africa and Europefrom the first landings in North Africa.

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In 1941, Davidson was instructed to prepare at short notice a biblio­graphical report on the uranium resources of the world for the informationof the Lord President of the Council; with this paper began an intimateassociation with the atomic energy project. The Special InvestigationsDivision (later renamed the Atomic Energy Division) was formed in1944 with Davidson in charge to carry out field and laboratory studiesof atomic energy raw materials. That year Davidson visited the UnitedStates for the first time to prepare in conjunction with the ManhattanDistrict organisation (later the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission) a com­prehensive review of the world potentialities of fissile materials. For thenext eleven years he traveIled widely to assess deposits of uranium,thorium and other strategic minerals.

As Chief Geologist of the Atomic Energy Division, Davidson wasresponsible for pioneer investigations of uranium deposits in most Col­onial and Commonwealth territories. In particular, he will be rememberedfor the part he played, together with Professor George Bain, in recog­nising the potential of the uranium associated with the gold of theWitwatersrand. He also contributed to the discovery of uranium inCanada, for research carried out under his direction on the naturalleaching of uranium ores encouraged Mr. Frank Joubin to drill moredeeply and so find the vast deposits of the Blind River field. Togetherwith his staff, he worked closely with the Atomic Energy ResearchEstablishment at HarweIl, planning the production of many types ofradiometric prospecting equipment, and with the then Chemical ResearchLaboratory in developing new techniques for geochemical prospecting.Davidson had a ready pen and was the author of many scientific papers,but his best-known work is his short Prospector's Handbook to RadioactiveMineral Deposits (H.M.S.a., 1949). This was a geological 'best-seller'with three printings, totalling 10,000 copies.

In 1955 Davidson was appointed to the chair of geology at his oldUniversity. Already a skilful debater, he developed into a lucid andentertaining lecturer who was very popular with his students. Besidesplaying an active role in university administration, he made a specialityof following Russian geological literature, and the services he renderedin this herculean labour wiIl be sorely missed by Western geologists.

In his extensive travels Davidson made many friends throughout thegeological world, who grieve the premature death of one who devotedhimself so whole-heartedly to geology. He was the best of company, andif sometimes his zest for controversy enlivened the geological literature,he never harboured ill-will for his antagonists. s. H. U. B.

The death of DR. W. F. FLEET on 15 August 1966was felt as a deep personalloss by the large number of students who had benefited from his out-