William Kennett Loftus, an English archaeologist, born at Rye about 1820, died on the passage from India to England in November, 1858. He was educated at Cambridge, where he attracted the attention of Sir Henry de la Beche, who procured him an appointment on the Turco-Persian boundary commission, and from 1849 to 1852 he was a resident of Turkey in Asia, and explored the sites of the ancient cities on the Tigris and Euphrates. In 1853 he revisited the same ground under the auspices of the Assyrian society, and published in 1857 "Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana," etc, with engravings. Subsequently he received an appointment on the staff of the geological survey of India, the operations of which were interrupted by the mutiny of 1857-'8. The specimens of ancient sculpture which he sent to the British museum are hardly inferior in interest to those excavated by Layard, and he was the reputed discoverer of the city or cemetery of Warka, supposed to be the Biblical Erech.