WATKINS, William Brown, philologist, born in Bridgeport, Belmont County, Ohio, 2 May, 1884. At an earn age he removed to Wheeling, Virginia, where he received a public-school education and began the study of law, but abandoned it to enter the Pittsburg conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. From 1868 till 1872 he was presiding elder at Steubenville, Ohio, after which he was stationed in Pittsburg for nine years. He was a delegate to the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1888, and has delivered many lectures on philology and educational subjects. The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Mount Union college, Ohio, and Alleghany college, Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1861, and that of D. D. by Mount Union in 1868. Besides contributing to reviews and magazines, chiefly on subjects pertaining to the English and Indian languages, he has prepared several school-books. Dr. Watkins is a reader of the historical dictionary of the Philological society now in course of publication in London, and for many years has been preparing an "Etymological Dictionary of American Geographical Names."