HEROES OF SCIENCE.

HEROES OF SCIENCE.

BOTANISTS, ZOOLOGISTS, AND GEOLOGISTS.

PROFESSOR R MARTIN DUNCAN, F.R.S., F.L.S.,

VICE I'RESIDENT OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ;
HONORARY FELLOW OF KING's COLLEGE, LONDON.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE

OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION APPOINTED BY THE

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

LONDON:

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS;

43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET; 48, PICCADILLY;
AND 135, NORTH STREET, BRIGHTON.

NEW YORK : E. & J. B. YOUNG AND CO.
1882.

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PREFACE.

There is no little difficulty in obtaining correct
and reliable life histories of most of the greatest
naturalists. Many of the men to whom natural
history science owes so much, lived extremely
retired and uneventful lives ; but a few, and as
might have been anticipated, the reformers and
epoch makers of their respective sciences, have
had their most interesting biographies well written.
Abstracts of these biographies form a large por-
tion of this book ; and the author desires to
acknowledge the very copious extracts he has
made, from sources which he has recognized in the
proper places.

INTRODUCTION.

Most of us, on leaving school or college, are
anxious about our future career in the world, and
concerning how we are to live, and what will be
our occupations. Some young people who have
finished their education, find themselves in com-
fortable circumstances, and are apt to look forward
to an easy life ; but the majority have a hard
struggle before them, ere they can hope to be free
from cares and to be successful. Yet it usually
happens, that those youths starting with the very
best prospects, do not live so happily, usefully, and
well, as those who have to struggle with poverty,
and who casting aside inglorious ease, labour on
perseveringly. It is hard to believe, until the
experience of years brings its very practical proofs

Vlil INTRODUCTION.

that knowledge Is more valuable than money ; and
therefore, how to get rich, is a predominant ques-
tion with the majority of us. But the history of
the struggles and successes of some of the men
who have led most useful and beautiful lives,
generally shows that industry, perseverance and
contentment have served them better than pecu-
niary wealth, and that this has often been a source
of trouble to them. There is no better incitement
to a youth who has tried to do his best at school,
and who is thinking about leading a useful,
successful life, than to read the history of the lives
of the men whose names are household words in
the branches of knowledge he has learned.

At the present time, much care is taken to
instruct young people about the nature and uses
of plants, the characteristics of animals and the
ancient history of the earth. Museums are readily
visited, and little home collections of plants, in-
sects, birds, and fossils are frequently easily made.
Natural history, in all its branches, is easily
studied ; and as one becomes learned in it, the
names of many men, constantly, come before the
student as the masters of their respective subjects.
Who has not heard of Linnaeus, Cuvier, and

INTRODUCTION. IX

Lyell? If any young naturalist will read the
history of the lives of these great men, he will
find much that is very noble in them ; he will see
that they made their way through great difficulties,
by constant and great intellectual labour, and that
they led very good, and useful, and happy lives.

It may happen that any one just commencing to
study nature, is anxious to make a great discovery
and to obtain a great name. The history of the
lives of these and other heroes of science, will prove
to him, however, that discoveries are not sudden
gains of knowledge, but are the result of very slow
and gradual accumulation of facts. If he is a real
student of nature, he will strive for truth and not
for personal distinction ; and the truth, brings a
better reward than the fleeting praise of man.
The true lasts. He will be able to glean that the
special gifts of men, if properly fostered and culti-
vated, advance knowledge in particular directions,
and that certain great changes and advances in the
method of learning, have been due to men who
have begun poor, have laboured hard, have been
persecuted and vilified, and who have nevertheless
lived happily in their consciences, and have often
become great men in every respect.

X INTRODUCTION.

The following chapters contain the history of
the lives of some of the most interesting men of
ancient and modern times — of men who are the
heroes of Botany, Zoology, and Geology, and who
have added methods of study and many facts to
their sciences.

Ii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

THE INFANCY OF THE KNOWLEDGE- OF THE SCIENCE OF
PLANTS.

PAGK

Old fancies and notions about plants — Aristoteles, the first
botanist — Theophrastus — Plinius — Dioscorides — Their
lives, labours, and troubles I

CHAPTER n.

THE RISE OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.
John Ray — Joseph de Tournefort — Their lives ... 27

CHAPTER HI.

THE LIFE OF IJNN^US.

The science of plants begins to mature, to be reformed, and

to be made more exact 52

CHAPTER IV.

THE LIFE OF LiNN^us {Continued).

The publication and reception of the artificial system of clas-
sifying plants . . . . . . . .81

Xil CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.

PAGE

The life of De CandoUe— The Natural System ... 98
CHAPTER VI.

HEROES OF ZOOLOGY.

The nature of the science of zoology — Great zoologists usually
botanists also — Aristoteles as a zoologist — Plinius — The
long age of no progress — The life of Conrad Gesner —
The zoology of Ray and Willughby — Swammerdam —
Reaumur — The zoology of Linnseus . . . .122

CHAPTER Vn.

THE LIVES OF BUFFON, PENNANT, AND LAMARCK.

The popular writings of Buffon, and his life — Pennant's life —
Lamarck and his life — The rise of popular natural history,
and of exact descriptions and philosophical zoology . 144

CHAPTER Vni.

THE LIFE OF CUVIER.

The union of zoology and comparative anatomy, and the

examination and study of fossil remains . . . .178

CHAPTER IX.

HEROES OF GEOLOGY.

The rise of the science which treats of the ancient history of
the earth — Students of the present changes which are the
examples by which the past may be comprehended— The
Greeks — The life of Pythagoras ; a notice of the geology
of Aristoteles — Strabo's life — The nature of fossils and
the life of Steno 209

CONTENTS. Xili

CHAPTER X.

THE LIFE OF HUTTON.

PAGE

The rise of the modern school of geology— The continuity of
the operations of nature and their sameness — The necessity
of studying the existing state of things in order to com-
prehend the past — The denial of catastrophes — Hutton's
theory of the earth the foundation of scientific geology , 22 1

CHAPTER XI.

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SMITH.
The succession of the strata recognized — Strata known by their
fossils, position, and mineral contents — England surveyed
by Smith and made the type of the results of the suc-
cession of changes studied by geology . , . , 236

CHAPTER XH.

THE LIFE OF MURCHISON.

The older rocks of the globe studied accurately and surveyed
— The general similarity of the succession of strata in
many parts of the world decided — The geology of Wales
and Scotland described — The commencement of accurate
geological surveys . , , , , , . .275

CHAPTER Xni.

THE LIFE OF LYELL.

The study of existing nature and its changes undertaken in
order to comprehend the past changes during geological
ages — The uniformity of natural operations under law —
Catastrophes abolished — The succession of life on the
globe, and that of the tertiary ages explained — The
antiquity of man and of the great ice age established . 307

. HEROES OF SCIENCE,

CHAPTER I.

THE INFANCY OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE
SCIENCE OF PLANTS.

Old fancies and notions about plants — Aristoteles, the first botanist
— Theophrastus — Plinius — Dioscorides — Their lives, labours,
and troubles.

I Everybody likes to gather flowers for the sake of
I their beauty and scent, and most young people
ask the names and the uses of the plants which
grow them. These appear to have been the
questions that the earliest races of men sought to
answer for themselves. They gave plants names,
and ascribed some truthful and a great many very
curious and false properties to them. Many of
the first races of men lived on fruits, vegetables,
and roots, and it became important to know good
and nourishing plants from those which were
poisonous. The ablest men of the tribes, probably,
studied the names which had been given by
I; B

i

'1

9 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

custom to many plants; and the healing power
of some plants, and the poisonous nature of others
began to be known ; the good and ill-disposed
amongst men endeavoured to learn all about them.
Thus the first steps in the science of plants were
to name them, and to ascribe properties to them.
It has often been noticed that there is some
resemblance between the history of the progress of
a science, during all the ages of civilization, and
that of the rise and progress of one in the child,
youth, and man. The child receives everything
that it is told, as a truth, and loves the wonderful ;
the youth likes to hear of mysteries, and his
emotions and poetic feeling lead him to desire
general truths ; and the man criticizes what he has
been told, tries to learn for himself, and longs for
exact knowledge and the absolute truth. So in
the early days of civilization, men believed in
everything that was told them, and ascribed
wonderful properties to the nature around them
which they saw was so beautiful and yet often so
terrible. As the world got older, curious legends
were associated with truths and falsities ; and with
the general diffusion of learning, and the careful
exercise of the reasoning powers, knowledge
became more exact and useful, and was followed
for truth's sake.

All branches of knowledge relating to nature
passed through many stages, and were influenced
by the prevailing habits and methods of thought
of the age. The wonderful, the mysterious, the

EARLY BOTANY. 3

marvellous, the union of poetry with true and false
religion, the struggle between the desire for truth
and fear of the persecution of the ignorant, and
the victory of cultivated observation and reason,
all followed, in order, during the history of the
progress of every science. A great writer states
that it cannot then surprise us that the earliest lore
concerning plants, which we discover in the records
of the past, consists of mythological legends,
marvellous relations, and extraordinary medicinal
qualities. To the lively fancy of the Greeks, the
narcissus, which bends its head over the stream,
was originally a youth who, in such an attitude,
became enamoured of his own beauty. The hya-
cinth, on whose flower certain markings are to be
traced resembling the Greek expression of grief
(AIAI), recorded the sorrow of the god Apollo
for the death of his favourite Hyacinthus. The
beautiful lotus of India, which floats with its
splendid flower on the surface of the water, is the
chosen seat of the goddess Lackshmi, the daughter
of Ocean. In Egypt, the god Osiris swam on a
lotus leaf, and the lotus-eaters of Homer lost their
love of home immediately.

These legends and odd fancies, although believed
in by the populace of the Eastern nations until a
late period in history, were of great antiquity ; and
under different names of gods and plants, heroes
and flowers had been handed down from the dawn
of civilization. Yet this was not all the know-
ledge about plants in those early years. The more

4 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

thoughtful amongst men began to recognize plants
by name and to study their uses. Some men were
hunters and shepherds, but with them were those
who, with gentler spirit, tilled the ground and stored
the fruits of the earth. What these were, can be
learned from the pictures in Egyptian paintings.
The corn of Egypt was wheat and barley, and it is
interesting to know that the wheat was of a kind
that must have been produced by skilled cultivation.
The vine comes early into notice in the Bible, and
it had been studied, for wine was made of its fruit.
Solomon loved nature, because it brought him into
the presence of truth and beauty, and he " spoke of
trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even
unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall."
This was part of his wisdom. And the great
traveller, Herodotus, shows us that a taste for
natural history had, in his time, found a place in the
mind of the Greeks — a great race who followed
after the first child-like nature-studies of the Chal-
deans, Assyrians, and Babylonians had merged
into real knowledge. In speaking of the luxuriant
vegetation of the plains of Babylon — now dreary
wastes — he is so far from desiring to astonish
merely, that he says " the blades of wheat and
barley are full four fingers wide ; but as to the
size of the trees which grow from millet and
sesame, though I could mention it I will not,
knowing well that those who have not been in that
country will hardly believe what I have said
already." It is clear that when the Greeks were

ARISTOTELES. 5

in the child-like stage of plant lore, the older races
had passed it, and were successful cultivators of
plants that had required much study to turn to use.
But the Greeks soon made amends, and the teacher
of Alexander the Great, Aristoteles, tried to
arrange plants, and to classify them according to
their peculiarities. Plants and herbs had been long
used as medicine, and the poisonous properties of
aconite had been employed to destroy one of the
noblest men of old, before this time, so that this
celebrated naturalist had the knowledge, which had
been accumulating for centuries, to put in order and
to arrange.

Aristoteles was born at Stageira, in the year
384 B.C., and it is interesting to note that his
wonderful love of nature was fostered by, and,
indeed, probably arose from the profession of his
father. His father was the physician and friend
of Amyntas, King of Macedonia, and his mother
was a descendant of the great physician .^Escu-
lapius. The young Aristoteles lost both his
parents at an early period of his life, but the son
of Amyntas, called Philip, was his friend, and kind
people brought the boy up. We know nothing of
the boy's habits or method of life ; but it can be
readily understood by those who read these lives,
and have had a love of nature, before the ex-
perience of such a calamity as the loss of parents,
that many an hour of sorrow was shortened and
solaced by studying the graceful and blooming
plants and the movements and habits of animals.

6 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Certain it is that the boy loved study, and it Soon
became evident that his loss was compensated, as
it is very often in such cases, by a spirit of self-
reliance. In his eighteenth year he went to Athens
to study the healing art. When Aristoteles was
about twenty-one years of age, the philosopher
Plato returned from Sicily, and the young man
then seems to have cared more for the study of the
sciences which were requisite for a polished phy-
sician, than for the art of healing. He made his
first self-sacrifice, as many a man has done since ;
he gave up the uncertainties of the art of curing
diseases, and learned natural history and philosophy.
His eagerness for knowledge and his extraordinary
acuteness and sagacity doubtless attracted Plato's
notice, who soon called him " the intellect of the
school," and said his house was " the house of the
reader." As Aristoteles grew up, his early train-
ing and his love of the truth seen in nature, began
to separate him from the common run of men, and
his self-reliance began to make him an antagonist
to the teachings even of the great Plato. But this
opposition was not that of a vain and conceited
young man. Plato had noticed his ability, and he
was really a man of mark, whose opinions were
valuable. Aristoteles studied facts, and knew many
truths about natural history, but his wonderful
master cared more for ideas. Such men must
always clash, and Aristoteles writes in one of his
books about his opposition to the philosophy of
Plato, that it is painful to refute the doctrine of

ARISTOTELES. 7

ideas, as it has been introduced by persons who
were his friends ; " nevertheless it is a duty to dis-
regard such private feelings, for both philosophers
and truth are dear to me, but it is right to give the
preference to truth." Truth! what is truth? said
Pilate, and turned from the true. The Creator's
light, seen with our longing eyes, precious beyond
conception, the sweetest solace of intellect ; what
is, what was — yet not to be defined by finite man.
The very root of science, it is that which we are to
hold in our consciences against all opposition.
Appreciated by the savage, dear to pagan, the pride
of the Christian, the giver of confidence amongst
all men. Hard to get at, yet it is at the founda-
tion of all those branches of knowledge which
relate to the study of the Creation. Aristoteles
studied natural history, that is, the plants and
animals which came before him, especially. He
recorded their description, noted their reproduc-
tion, and tried to make out their resemblances.
He noticed the growth of things, and the decay
of the surface of the earth, and having the facts
and truths before him, he argued upon them. His
master, Plato, was not a naturalist, but accepting
the truths handed down to him by those who
were observers of nature, he generalized about
them, and got ideas by thinking out the bearings
of the truths. He loved the ideal, and wrote,
*' Behold this world! You will find that its
efficient cause is God, by whom it was brought
into being ; its moving cause, the goodness of the

8 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Creator." He could no more occupy time by
studying the structure of the flowers, plants, and
sea-shells, than Aristoteles could in imagining or
speculating on the causes of things. Both desired
the truth, and tried to get it in different manners ;
but as at the present day there are moral phi-
losophers and naturalists with totally different
kinds of mind and habits of thought, so in those
old days the master and pupil never worked
together. The master gave way to his grand
imagination, and the pupil was strictly a matter-of-
fact man.

Aristoteles remained at Athens until he was
thirty-seven years of age, when the death of Plato,
in 347 B.C., happened. Before that time, however, he
had become a man of note, and the Athenians sent
him on an embassy to his friend and former patron,
Philip of Macedon. It appears that he was able to
serve his adopted country ; but he made a mistake
which all naturalists should avoid — he became a
politician. His position at Athens became uncom-
fortable, and he left the city after the death of Plato,
and, accompanied by a fellow-disciple of the great
teacher, went into Asia Minor. They were invited
by the Prince of Atarneus, named Hermeias, who
had received lessons from Aristoteles. This man
was once the slave of a banker, and when at
Athens received a liberal education. Returning
to his native country, he fought for Eubulus, the
King of Atarneus, successfully against the Persians.
On the death of Eubulus he was raised to the

ARISTOTELES. 9

throne, and gladly welcomed one of the men who
had given him knowledge, and, therefore, power.
The romance of Aristoteles' life followed quickly,
for, unfortunately, Hermeias was captured by the
Persians under a Greek general, after Aristoteles had
been three years with him. He was put to death,
and Aristoteles fled to Mitylene, the chief city of
the neighbouring island of Lesbos. Hermeias had
a sister, Pythias, and Aristoteles, knowing her ex-
cellent character and disposition, and being aware
of the sad fate which she would suffer, were she to
fall into the hands of the Persians, married her, and
she accompanied him in his flight. She made him
an excellent wife, and Aristoteles had always a
fervent and sincere affection for the patriotic and
philosophical prince his friend.

After two years' residence in Mitylene, Aristoteles
was invited by Philip to return to Macedonia, to
superintend the education of his son Alexander,
the future Alexander the Great, then fourteen years
old. He was with this very able prince during
about four years, and instructed him in morality,
politics, and natural history. It was a strange
position for a student of nature to occupy, and
that he did his duty to his pupil is evident. It is
the universal opinion that much that was ad-
mirable in the character of Alexander the Great
was due to the influence of Aristoteles. The great
conqueror was fond of literature, delighted in
physical and even medical pursuits, sought the
intimacy of men who thought, rather than that

10 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

of men who had no other recommendation than
titles and riches, and was devoted to the study
of nature. These were the fruits of Aristoteles*
instruction, and it must be remembered that
Alexander differed entirely in his conduct from
the brutal conquerors who have been, over and over
again, the scourge and curse of mankind.

Aristoteles lost his wife during this time, and
she left him an only daughter. Then Philip was
assassinated, and his son reigned at Macedon for
two years, and then began his great expedition
into Asia. Aristoteles accompanied his pupil to
Athens, and parted with him never to see him
again, but still to influence him for years. Un-
fortunately, however, Aristoteles recommended a
relation, named Callisthenes, to the young king,
and it was the cause of a rupture of friendship
in years to come. Left to himself, our hero re-
solved to open a school for the benefit of the
Athenian youth, and to teach good learning in
philosophy and nature. He chose a house near
a temple of Apollo Lyceius, which was called
the "Lyceum," and attached to it was a garden
with walks, where the instruction was given. The
Greek word for the walks was peripatua^ and the
school was called that of the peripatetics. His
habit was to give one lecture in the early part of
the day, on the more difficult parts of his teaching,
to his more advanced students ; and this was called
the morning walk, and lasted till the hour when
people dressed and anointed themselves. Another

ARISTOTELES. 1 1

lecture, called the evening walk, was on more
popular subjects, and to a larger and less select
class. It was during these thirteen years of
teaching that Aristoteles composed and completed
the greater part of his works which have descended
to our days. Amongst them are treatises on
natural history, the result of his own observations
and of the carefully selected works of others.

His great pupil never forgot his master during
his victorious career, and Alexander is said to have
sent Aristoteles the enormous sum of eight hundred
talents to prosecute his studies in natural history.
He, moreover, ordered several thousands of persons
over the whole of Greece and Asia, who lived by
hunting, bird-catching, and fishing, or who had the
care of parks, herds, hives, stews, and aviaries, to
furnish Aristoteles with materials for a work on
animals. Two volumes on plants were written
by Aristoteles, but they are lost to us ; and he
influenced the botanists of his day by his great
exactitude of description and observation.

Aristoteles' writings and teaching embraced a
great variety of subjects, and they were so genuine
that he became the leader of one of the principal
schools of Greece ; and his method of study and
many of his facts and ideas have influenced man-
kind down to the present day. His works were
much studied during the Middle Ages, and although
his books on botany have been lost, still he influenced
the study of botany through his pupil, Theophrastus, \
who became the great light of after years. j

12 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

There is one point about Aristoteles' character
which everybody must admire, and it was the
gratitude he felt for the good friends of his youth
and of the days of struggling upwards in his career.
It has been noticed that he was brought up by kind
people. They were not relations, but probably
were appointed his guardians by his father. They
were Proxenus and his wife, citizens of Atarneus,
who had left that city and had been long resident
in Stageira. Not only were they the good friends
of the boy, but they evidently brought him in
contact with Hermeias, who subsequently became
the prince of the place and Aristoteles' fast friend
and brother-in-law. Aristoteles testified his grati-
tude to his friends by directing in his will that
statues of them, as well as of his parents, should
be set up at his expense. He likewise educated
their son, Nicanor, to whom he gave his daughter
in marriage. Whilst • growing old he wrote a
beautiful poem, which is still to be read, praising
the virtues of his friend and patron, Hermeias.

But success in life is sure to produce envy and
hostility, and Aristoteles was no exception to this
rule. A charge was made against him of impiety,
and that he had made a god of his friend Hermeias.
Such charges were not uncommon in those days.
Socrates, one of the greatest and purest of men,
had been accused of impiety a few years before,
and that teacher of the immortality of the soul, and
the master and friend of Plato, had been condemned
and poisoned. The charges were absurd enough,

ARISTOTELES. 1 3

but the judges were ignorant, and sunk in paganism,
and almost invariably took the side of the accuser.
Indeed, all through the histoiy of the progress of
the rise of civilization there v^^ere men who teaching
a false religion, accused the bright lights of genius,
science, and wit, of irreligion. The false priest and
the fighting class, with rare exceptions, have always
persecuted the leaders in science, and have an-
tagonized progress, except in their own interests.

When the charge was made against Aristoteles,
Alexander the Great was dead, and the great
teacher, knowing full well what would be the
result of the trial, quitted Athens and took refuge
in Chalcis, in Eubcea, saying that he wished to
prevent the Athenians twice rimning against phi-
losophy^ alluding to the judicial murder of Socrates.

But Aristoteles' work was nearly ended, and the
slightly made, delicate, and sensitive man sank
during the first year of his exile, in the sixty-third
year of his age.

A great writer on moral philosophy, the man
whose career has just been noticed will always
remain a master in natural history subjects also.
He was really a greater student of animal life than
of plants ; but it appears that his method of study
of botany, and much of his knowledge, have
descended to us, in consequence of his careful
teaching, through his pupil Theophrastus. A great
writer remarks that " everywhere Aristoteles ob-
serves the facts with attention ; he compares them
with sagacity, and endeavours to rise to the quali-

14 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

ties they have in common." He found the study
of plants in its very infancy and loaded with
child-like and wonderful stories, and he rejected
the nonsense and studied what was to be observed
by any one in nature. In fact, he took the first
step which a well-educated boy of the present
century does in trying to learn nature unaided.
He observed as correctly as possible, took notes of
his observations, compared the observations made
on one plant with those recorded about another,
and tried to explain or discover the things which
were common to both. It must not be imagined
that the botanical work of Aristoteles exists as part
of the systems of botany of the present day ; but
he clearly gave the method of how to study, by
insisting on the superior value of observed facts,
over notions and preconceived ideas about things.
The childhood of the science passed with him.

The name of Theophrastus has been noticed as
that of the pupil of Aristoteles, and it is one which
will always be mentioned with respect by students
of natural history. He was born at Eresus, on the
island of Lesbos ; but the date of his birth is un-
certain ; moreover, nothing is known of his early
youth, except that his name was Tyrtamus. His
early education must have been good, and he was
sent to study at Athens by his father, and to be a
pupil of Plato. Becoming a friend of Aristoteles,
this great man, charmed with the abilities, and
especially with the beautiful pronunciation and
oratory of the youth, gave him the name of Theo-

p

THEOPHRASTUS. 1 5

phrastus, or one who speaks divinely. Theophrastus
studied with Plato, and on the death of his master,
left the academy and mixed with the turbulent poli-
tics of the day, but in a truly patriotic spirit. He
was absent from Athens for many years, and the
historian Plutarch writes that Theophrastus de-
livered his country twice from the oppression
of tyrants. One of the defeated at the battle of
Chaeronaea, Theophrastus returned to Athens, gave
up the military life, and became the favourite pupil
of Aristoteles in the Lyceum.

Theophrastus became an earnest student of
Aristoteles' teaching, and his singular grace of ex-
pression and knowledge of his mother tongue soon
made him a prominent philosopher.

When Aristoteles retired, his pupil became his
successor; and as he combined the knowledge of
that teacher with the eloquence of Plato, his success
was extraordinary. The number of his pupils, on
one occasion, is said to have amounted to two
thousand who flocked around him from all parts of
Greece. He soon began to feel the effects of his
well-deserved and useful success upon the envious
minds of the men who had caused the retirement
of Aristoteles. And this envy and malice were
rendered all the more intense because, having been
a gallant soldier, and being a great teacher of
advanced knowledge, Theophrastus became an
authority on all intellectual subjects. A man was
put forward by a party in the State, to bring the
same charge of impiety against Theophrastus

1 6 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

which had succeeded in the instances of Socrates
and Aristoteles. But Theophrastus pleaded his
own cause before the Areopagus with such convinc-
ing eloquence that he was pronounced innocent.
On the other hand, his accuser would have fallen a
victim to the false charge he had brought, had not
his noble-minded antagonist pleaded for his pardon.
After this event the teacher pursued his course of
public teaching and private research without any
molestation for years. His school increased in
reputation, and the most distinguished scholars of
the day were members of it. Demetrius Phalereus,
ruler of the State, was one of the students in his
youth, and he protected Theophrastus and patro-
nized him in every way. Botany was not the
strongest subject of this great man, and probably
what he knew about it was largely derived from
the teaching of Aristoteles ; but evidently his work
on plants was one of the earliest that was written
with anything like scientific precision. Never-
theless, Theophrastus added much original matter,
for he had a botanic garden, and he collected
plants during his travels in Greece. His military
friends kept him supplied with specimens of
Asiatic, Egyptian, and Arabian plants, and with
descriptions of their natures and peculiarities, some
of which were true and others quite imaginary.
What was true and what was not true was fre-
quently a puzzle to this philosopher, as it is to
modern naturalists. He wrote, " The drug sellers
and root cutters tell us some things which may be

THEOPHRASTUS. 1/

true, but other things which are merely solemn
quackery. Thus they direct us to gather some
plants, standing from the wind and with our
bodies anointed ; some by night, some by day,
some before the sun falls on them. So far there
may be something in their rules ; but others are too
fantastical and far-fetched. It is, perhaps, not
absurd to use a prayer in plucking a plant ; but
they go further than this. We are to draw a sword
three times round the mandragora, and to cut it
looking to the west ; again, to dance round it, and
to use obscene language, as those who sow cumin
should utter blasphemies. Again, we are to draw
a line round the black hellebore, standing to the
east, and praying ; and to avoid an eagle either on
the right or on the left ; for they say if an eagle be
near, the cutter will die in a year."

This was the nonsense, out of which Theophrastus
had to extricate the true wisdom of plants, and he
tried to put aside fancies, legends, and the opinions
of men, and to puzzle out the meaning of the simi-
larities and differences of plants, by first of all
learning and describing their construction, habits,
methods of growth, and increase.

Only a fragment of the last of ten books on
plants written by Theophrastus has come down to
us. The writings made such an impression on the
students that their general bearing has been trans-
mitted, and the main points are as follows. Theo-
phrastus classified plants by the manner in which
they were reproduced, the localities where they

I. C

1 8 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

were found, their size, as trees or shrubs or herbs,
and according to their uses, as furnishing juices,
pot-herbs, and seeds that may be eaten. The first
book treated of the parts of the plant — the root,
stem, leaves, flower, and seed, and the second of the
manner in which plants seed, and the proper times
for sowing seeds, and how to sow. In this part he
mentions that some plants, evidently of the same
kind, have seed and others not, or that there are
different sexes in plants, the female bearing the
seed. That he was a practical observer is proved
by his writings on the method of the reproduction
in the great palm trees, which are such striking
features in the East. Moreover, he studied the
way in which figs grew and the seed became fertile,
and he compared the reproduction of the fig with
that of the palm tree. The third, fourth, and fifth
books are devoted to a consideration of trees, their
various kinds, the places they come from, and the
economical uses to which they may be applied.
The sixth book treats of winter shrubs and spring
plants ; the seventh of pot-herbs ; the eighth of
plants yielding seeds used for food ; and the ninth
of those plants that yield useful juices, gums, resins,
and other exudations. The love of the marvellous,
however, creeps in here and there, and amongst
good facts there are very considerable " tough
yarns ; " but these come from the old soldiers of
Alexander the Great.

There is one thing most interesting in the works
of this man, and it is the desire he had to make his

THEOPHRASTUS. 1 9

knowledge useful to mankind. This Is especially
noticed in another work on the causes of plants,
of which six parts remain to the present day. It
is really a work on gardening and farming, with
a good deal of pure and applied knowledge on
botany. It is not everybody, nowadays, that can
combine what is scientific, that is to say, exact
knowledge, with useful and applied knowledge. Too
frequently the scientific botanist does not teach
gardening or farming ; and certainly, as a rule, the
writers on these last subjects are not scientific
botanists, and, indeed, they are often of a very
different kind of mind. It has been said of the
works of Theophrastus that there is much valu-
able matter in them that deserves the attention
of the botanist, and that a very little knowledge
of botany will enable the reader to separate the
chaff from the wheat.

So noted was the learning of this great man
on other subjects, that his good work on plants
remained the text-book of centuries ; and, in fact,
little or no satisfactory knowledge about plants,
beyond that given to us by Aristoteles and Theo-
phrastus, was discovered for many centuries.

The fall of Demetrius from power removed the
protector of Theophrastus, and the ignorant anti-
educationalist party of the day revived their per-
secutions. In the year 305 B.C. a political noodle
managed to frame a law, and to get it passed by the
ruling body of the day, which forbade all philo-
sophers under pain of death to give any publie
instruction without permission of the State.

^0 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

This curious law was passed in order to prevent
the education of the people being advanced, and
the result was that Theophrastus and several other
teachers left Athens. Good sense, however, seems
to have prevailed over ignorance and hostility to
learning, and the law was abolished in the following
year. Moreover, the proposer of it was fined the
great sum of five talents for his folly. Then Theo-
phrastus returned to Athens, and taught there until
he died. The whole population followed his body
to the grave.

It is a remarkable fact that the writings of
Aristoteles and Theophrastus on plants, were not
improved upon for many hundreds of years. They
were both observers of nature, and their works
contained all the knowledge on the subject, of their
time. When the Romans obtained the supremacy
in Europe, and had possessions in Asia and in
Africa, men were not found amongst them who
could add to the knowledge of the Greeks about
plants ; so the books of the two great men who
were the fathers of botany were simply copied by
their successors, or criticized, and doubtful novelties
were added.

There were many Roman writers on agriculture,
but few wrote on the nature and structure of plants,
and amongst them the most celebrated was Caius
Plinius Secundus, commonly called Pliny the Elder.

Where this great man was born is not known,
but possibly it was at Como. He was of noble
family, entered the army, and became a dis-

PLINIUS. 21

tingulshed soldier. He was appointed Augur at
Rome, and subsequently had supreme power in
Spain. These were not apparently the positions
which were likely to stimulate a young man of wealth
to study natural history, and certainly, in later
days, the military man and active politician have
not proved, as a rule, enthusiastic students of plants
and animals. Want of time and inclination are, of
course, the usual excuses of such men, and the love
of luxury and of intellectual idleness might be added
also. Nevertheless there is an instance in the case
of the elder Plinius, where a man, greatly and im-
portantly occupied, spent much time in studying
nature, in compiling the observations made by his
predecessors, and in writing books which have
given him a fame which will last with the world.
In summer he began his work as soon as it was
light ; in winter, generally at one in the morning —
never later than two, and sometimes earlier.-'" No
man, writes his nephew, spent less time in bed, and
sometimes he would, without retiring from his
books, indulge in a short sleep, and then pursue
his studies. Before daybreak he went to the
Emperor Vespasian, who chose to transact business
at that hour, and when the Emperor had finished,
Plinius returned to his studies. After a slender repast
at noon, he would in the summer recline in the sun,
and during the time some book was read to him,
and he made extracts from the author. He used to
say that " no book was so bad but something might
be learned from it." After this he had a cold bath

22 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

and took refreshment and rest. Thus reinvigorated,
he resumed his studies until supper, when a book
was read to him, and he made remarks on it.
This, of course, must have been an occasional
method of passing the day, for no man could live
without some hours of exercise and sleep. Pro-
bably he retired to sleep at eight under these
circumstances, and had a good sleep in the hot
hours of the day. When in the country all his
time was devoted to study, except when he slept
and bathed. He is said to have used a carriage
instead of walking, and, unfortunately, but naturally,
he got weak lungs and became corpulent.

Plinius laboured for many years at natural history
and the other sciences, and he was a most diligent
collector of information. A warrior and a states-
man, yet he contrived to write a vast number of
works, his books on natural history alone amounting
to twenty-seven volumes. He appears to have
known all that it was possible to know at his
age of the world, and yet there was no great amount
of new work put into his books. It has been very
properly said that the loftiness of his ideas and the
nobleness of his style enhance still more his pro-
found learning. Naturally, as he copied much
from other writers, and especially, in one part of
botany which relates to medicine, from an author
named Dioscorides, he could not examine into the
'truth of every statement which had been made.
Hence Plinius retailed some curious stories now and
then, which are more amusing than true j but, on

DIOSCORIDES. 23

the whole, he established, on solid grounds, the
learning of his own and previous ages.

This active-minded man, who lived in luxury
and had great responsibilities, is an example to
many of the same class who do not care to enjoy
the study of the beautiful nature around them. He
lost his life whilst endeavouring to sustain the
courage of his friends, during the great eruption of
Vesuvius, when the cities of Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum were destroyed. He was on shore at the
time, and probably was suffocated by noxious
fumes.

The name of Dioscorides has been mentioned as
that of an author known to Plinius ; he was born
in Cilicia, at Anazarbus, and flourished during the
reign of the Emperor Nero. Nothing is known
about his early life, but it appears that he was a
soldier, and possibly connected Vv^th the surgical
and medical art in the army. Certain it is that he
travelled over many countries — Greece, Italy, Gaul,
and Asia Minor — gathering plants and study-
ing, not so much their structures and mutual
resemblances and differences, as their medical or
healing powers. He obtained plants from travellers
in India, and learned the merits of herbs and drugs
from many nations. He wrote on the substances
used in medicine in a Materia Medica, and named
and briefly described between five and six hun-
dred medicinal plants. Unfortunately Dioscorides
wrote in a careless manner, and there is much
nonsense mixed up with truth in his writings.

24 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

But he was of use ; he was not merely a student of
the beauties of nature, but of the value of certain
plants to man in his pain and trouble, and he
founded the science of medical botany.

Aristoteles, Theophrastus, Plinius, and Diosco-
rides are the men of mark who raised botany and
plant-learning out of their infancy and gave them
a youthful vigour. They placed the method of
learning, on its right basis. Instead of imagining
what was true, and then collecting and studying
plants to prove the correctness of the imagined
notion, they began in the opposite direction. They
strove to learn and discover facts, — truths, and then
reasoned upon them. Ignorant people, and those
men who have the minds of children, always like their
opinions and ideas better than facts, and especially
if the facts will not fit in with their notions. Such
people do not know how hard it is to find out the
truth in nature, how difficult it is for finite man to
comprehend infinite wisdom. This was as true
formerly as it is now, and hence the method of learn-
ing, taught by the earlier of those great men, was
opposed to the understandings of the majority of
their fellow men. They troubled the complacent
ignorance of the day, and were therefore perse-
cuted. Like brave men, they did not care for
persecution, knowing that they did not deserve the
wicked charges brought against them ; they perse-
vered, and not only enjoyed life much more than
their opponents, but led good and useful lives.

The works of these men were studied by all the

EARLY BOTANISTS. 2$

learned, during fifteen hundred years and more ;
they were the text-books of science during what
are called the dark or middle ages, and although
now out of date, they were the good seeds of
knowledge, sown in difficulty, in those early days.

Aristoteles, Theophrastus, and Plinius were not
only botanists, but naturalists in every sense, and the
first named is especially celebrated as a student of
and writer upon animals ; he was a great zoologist.
Theophrastus knew much about geology, and so
did Plinius.

These men, then, brought the science of botany
out of its childhood, and saw it partly on its way
through its youth ; they had removed it beyond the
fanciful ideas and strange notions of the earliest
writers on the subject, and had begun to classify
plants, and to study the relations of plants to sur-
rounding nature, and to the wants of man. Che-
mistry and the use of the microscope were unknown,
and therefore progress in the necessary direction
could not be made at that time of the world.

It must be remembered that botany does not
consist in collecting, drying, and drawing plants
alone, but it relates to everything about the
vegetable kingdom of nature. The growth of the
plant from the seed ; how it lives, breathes, and
its sap circulates ; how starch, and sugar, and
other products are formed — have to be considered.
The manner of unfolding of the flov/cr, the
anatomy of its fruits, and of the leaves and stems
and root, and the method by which the kind repro-

26

HEROES OF SCIENCE.

duces, and the decay of the plant have to be
studied. Then the uses of plants, medicinal and
as food, have to be treated. How they can be best
grown, and how plants are distributed over the
land at different heights, form other subjects ;
and the arrangement of plants in a classification
founded on the similarity of their most important
anatomical structures, and constituting what is
termed a natural system, is one of the most
necessary studies.

CHAPTER II.

THE RISE OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.
John Ray — ^Joseph de Toumefort — Their lives.

The world went to sleep for many centuries, so far
as natural history and many other things are con-
cerned, after the time of Pliny, and sixteen hun-
dred years elapsed before any advance was made
in botanical knowledge. This was the age when
the only light on the earth was struggling Chris-
tianity, and it was shaded by superstition and
violence. At last men began to learn Greek again,
and to read the ancient authors carefully, so that
nature began to be studied. A few foreign botan-
ists began to attenipt to add to the knowledge_the
ancients had given them, and to classify plants.

But the first man who made a real advance, and
whose work has influenced the study of plant life
down to the present day, was an Englishman, who
was bred in comparative poverty, suffered persecu-
tion, and lived a beautiful life.

28 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

The name of this distinguished man was John
Ray, and he was the son of Roger Ray and EHza-
beth his wife, being born in 1628. His father was
a blacksmith, of Black Notley, near Braintree, in
Essex, and the boy was sent to school at the
Grammar School at Braintree. There he found the
kindness of Mr. Love, the master, in teaching him,
a set-off against the general want of education in
the establishment; and he had reason to be
thankful, for before he was sixteen years of age he
was sent, from the school, to Cambridge. He
entered at St. Catherine's Hall, under the tutorship
of Mr. Duckfield. But the youth did not like the
Hall; he wished to study, and the inmates, he said,
chiefly addicted themselves to disputations ; so he
went to Trinity, where he found the politer arts
and sciences were principally minded and culti-
vated. Ray worked hard, and had an excellent
tutor, \vho wa^ a great Greek scholar, and soon
made up for the defective teaching he had had at
Braintree. He acquired much Latin and Greek,
and some Hebrew, and it soon became evident that
the youth could speak well and fluently. His
leisure was that of a student ; he loved to observe
nature, to study the little gems of the garden and
country, and all these things brought him speedily
before the notice of the authorities of the College.
When he had been there three years, he was elected
a Minor Fellow, together with his great friend Isaac
Barrow, who had been a Charterhouse boy, and
subsequently a scholar at Felsted, an Essex school.

RAY. 29

They were the favourite pupils of their master.
Ray took his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and
then that of Master of Arts, becoming then a
Major Fellow. In 165 1 he was chosen the Greek
Lecturer to the College ; two years afterwards
Mathematical Lecturer, and in 1655 Humanity
Reader. Then he was made Junior Dean and Col-
lege Steward, and he became the tutor to many
men of subsequent worth, especially to Mr. Francis
Willughby, of Middleton Hail, in Warwickshire.
During these years Ray wandered over the country
collecting and studying plants. He wrote the O^
story of his journeys in and about Eingland, calling
them " Itineraries." His tirst jouFne}rwas in 1658,
and he rode from Cambridge to Northampton ; he
passed by Higham Ferrers and saw the outside of
a great stone building called a college, and he
wrote that Northampton was indifferently hand-
some, the houses being built of timber, notwith-
standing the plenty of stone dug in that county.
He saw in a Mr. Bowker's garden " divers
physical plants," and he noticed the luxuriance of
the lupinus there. Then he went to Warwick by
Daventry, and saw Holdenby House. At Shuck-
borough he did not see the star-stones he had
heard of. He visited Warwick, but cared more
for Guy's Cliff than for the rib of the dun cow
and Guy's sword ; and then he went into
Derbyshire, and investigated the Pool's-hole,
near Buxton, and noticed the wild flowers of
the hills. Travelling on to North Wales, he visited

30 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

the brine-pits of Northwych, and at Chester he
noticed the red stone of the cathedral, which he
considered had little beauty within or without.
He visited Swindon, and got home by Shrewsbury
and Gloucester. This was a journey done in the
old-fashioned manner, on horseback. It opened
Ray's eyes to the immense amount of nonsense that
XVas talked about nature, and especially about any
unusual natural phenomenon. He seems especially
to have visited the wells and springs, and he
expressed his doubts of the wonderful cures,
attributing his want of belief to his scientific frame
of mind.

At this period, it was usual for young men of
ability and learning, though not in orders, to de-
liver sermons and common-place readings, as they
were called, not only in the chapels or halls of their
own colleges, but even before the University body
at St. Mary's church. In these Ray eminently
distinguished himself. He was among the first
who ventured to lead the attention of his hearers
from the unprofitable subtleties of scholastic
divinity and the trammels of the old Greek philo-
so]pHy to an observation of nature and a practical
investigation of truth. The rudiments of many of
his subsequenf writings originated in these juvenile
essays, particularly his celebrated book on the
" Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the
Creation," known all over the world by its numerous
editions and translations, and universally admired
for its rational piety, sound philosophy, and solid

RAY. 31

instruction. / This book is the basis of the labours
of all those divines who have made the book of
nature a commentary on the book of revelation,
a confirmation of truths which nature has not
authority of herself to establish. In it the author
inculcates the doctrine of a constantly superin-
tending Providence, as well as the advantage, and
even the duty, of contemplating the works of God.
"This," he says, "is part of the business of a
Sabbath-day, as it will be, probably, of our em-
ployment through that eternal rest of which the
Sabbath is a type." Archbishop Tenison is re-
corded to have told Dr. Derham that ** Mr. Ray
was much celebrated in his time at Cambridge
for preaching solid and useful divinity, instead of
that enthusiastic stuff which the sermons of that
time were generally filled with." It would be
refreshing to hear a Ray in the nineteenth century.
Two of his funeral discourses are mentioned with
particular approbation ; one, on the death of Dr.
Arrowsmith, master of his college ; the other, on
that of one of his most intimate and beloved col-
leagues, Mr. John Nid, likewise a Senior Fellow of
Trinity, who had a great share in Ray's first
botanical publication, the " Catalogug, Plantarum
circa Cantabrigiam nascentium," printed in 1660
(a catalogue of plants growing around Cambridge).
Before this little volume appeared, its author had
visited various parts of England and Wales for
the purpose of investigating their native plants, as
he did several times afterwards. Nor were his

32 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

observations confined to natural history, but ex-
tended to local and general history, antiquities, the
arts, and all kinds of useful knowledge. Ray's first
botanical tour occupied nearly six weeks, from
August 9th to September i8th, 1658. On the 23rd
of December, 1660, he was ordained both deacon
and priest at the same time by Dr. Sanderson, then
Bishop of Lincoln. In 1661 he travelled with Mr.
Willughby into Scotland, returning by Cumber-
land and Westmoreland ; and the following year,
with the same companion, he accomplished a more
particular investigation of Wales. How critically
he studied the botany of the countries he visited,
is evident from the different editions of his works
called "A Catalogue of British Plants," and "A
Methodical Synopsis of British Wild Plants." In
fact, Ray felt the necessity of being able to
recognize plants by their accurate descriptions, and
saw that classification was the alphabet of the
science.

All this time Mr. Ray continued to enjoy his
fellowship and to cultivate his Cambridge con-
nections; but in September, 1662, his tranquillity
was disturbed by the too famous Bartholomew -^
Act, by which two thousand conscientious divines
were turned out of their livings, and many fellows
of colleges deprived of their maintenance and
means of literary improvement. Among the latter
v/as the subject of our memoir, with thirteen honest
men at Cambridge besides, of whose names he has *
left us a list. One of them, Dr. Dillingham, was

RAY. 33

master of Emanuel College ; but Ray was the only
person of his own college who suffered this depriva-
tion. One of Ray's biographers writes : — " The
reader must not suppose that he, or perhaps
any other person in this illustrious catalogue,
was in the least degree deficient in attachment
to the doctrine or discipline of the Church of
England, or that they had taken the oath, called
the Solemn League and Covenant, which Ray
certainly had neither taken nor even approved.
They were required to swear to the infamous pro-
position that the said oath was not binding to
those who had taken it, and on this ground they
conscientiously gave up their preferment." It is
curious to read the apology made for Ray, to Dr.
Derham on this subject, by a Mr. Brokesby, " that
he was at that time absent from his college, where
he might have met with satisfaction to his scruples,
and was among some zealous nonconformists who
too much influenced him by the addition of new
scruples. And Vv^e may also ascribe somewhat to
the prejudice of education in unhappy times." By
this it appears that the " scruples " of nonconform-
ists were most favourable to the sanctity of an
oath, and that the " unhappy times " alluded to
were more advantageous to principle than the
golden days of Charles II., whose ministers doubt-
less valued the obedience far more than the honesty
of any man ; nor was this taste by any means
peculiar to them or their profligate master.

Mr. Ray (or, as he wrote his name for a while
I. D

34 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

about this period, Wray), having thus the world
before him, made an arrangement with Mr. Wil-
lughby for a tour on the Continent ; and in this
plan two of his pupils were included, Mr. Nathaniel
Bacon and Mr., afterwards Sir Philip, Skippon.
They sailed for Calais in April, 1663, but being
prevented by the state of political affairs from
prosecuting their journey through France, they
traversed the Low Countries and Germany, pro-
ceeding by Venice into Italy, most of whose cities
they visited, either by sea or land, as well as Malta
and Sicily ; and returned by Switzerland, through
France, into England in the spring of 1666.

Mr. Willughby, indeed, separated from the rest
of the party at Montpellier, and visited Spain. An
ample account of their observations was published
by Ray in 1673, making a thick octavo volume.
The travellers studied politics, literature, natural
history, mechanics, and philosophy, as well as
antiquities and other curiosities ; but in the fine
arts they assume no authority, nor display any
considerable taste or knowledge. Mr. Willughby's
account of Spain makes a part by itself, and a rich
critical catalogue of such plants, not, for the most
part, natives of England, as were observed in this
tour, concludes the volume. There is no doubt
that Ray has the credit of having discovered several
species of plants in Switzerland not previously
known to belong to that country. Ray passed the
summer of 1666 partly at Black Notle)y^nd partly
in Sussex, studying chiefly the works of Hook,

RAY. 35

Boyle, Sydenham, on fevers, and the " Philosophical
Transactions," " making few discoveries," says he,
" save of mine own errors." The following winter
he was employed at Mr. Willughby's, in arranging
that gentleman's museum of seeds, dried plants,
birds, fishes, shells, and other objects of natural
history and coins, and in forming tables of plants
and animals for the use of Dr. Wilkins. He
began to arrange a catalogue of the English native
^ants which he had gathered, rather for his own
use than with any immediate view of publication
at present. He wrote to Dr. Lister, "The world
is glutted with bungling;" "I resolve never to
put out anything which is not as perfect as is
possible for me to make it. I wish you would
take a little pains this summer about grasses,
that so we might compare notes." The above
resolution of our author is no doubt highly com-
mendable, but the world has rather to lament that
so many able men have formed the same deter-
mination, at least in natural science. If it were
universally adhered to, scarcely any work would see
the light, for few can be so sensible of the defects
of any other person's attempt to illustrate the
works of nature, as a man of tolerable judgment
must be of his own. This is especially the case
with those who, like Ray, direct their aspiring
views towards system and philosophical theory.
Happily he did not try this arduous path, till he
had trained himself by wholesome practical disci-
pline in observation and experience. His first

36 HEROES Of SCIENCE.

botanical works assumed the humble form of
alphabetical catalogues. His and Mr. Willughby's
labours in the service of Bishop Wilkins were,
indeed, o£a systematical description, and j^cord-
ingly the authors themselves were probably more
"dissatisfied than any other persons with their
performance. They relaxed from these labours in
a tour of practical observation through the west
of England, as far as the Land's End, in the
summer of 1667, and returning by London, Mr.
Ray was solicited to become a Fellow of the Royal
Society, into which learned body he was admitted
November 7th. Being now requested by his friend
Wilkins to translate his celebrated work, "An
Essay towards a Real Character and a Philo-
sophical Language," into Latin, he undertook,
and by degrees accomplished, that arduous per-
formance. The following summer was agreeably
spent in visits to various literary friends, and in a
a solitary journey to the north. His former com-
panion, Willughby, being just married, stayed at
home; but Ray joined him in September, 1668,
and remained for most part of the ensuing winter
and spring.

The seclusion and leisure of the country, with
the converse and assistance of such a friend, were
favourable to the prosecution of a new subject of
inquiry, which now strongly attracted the attention

nf r>i]r ^rp:\\ nfltUra!).'^^ — ^^^ theory..nf vpo-pfation.

The first step of the two philosophers in this little-
explored;£atLia&..m-5xami

RAY. 37

of the sap In trees ; and the result of their inquiries,
communicated to the Royal Society, appeared soon
after in the " Philosophical Transactions." Their
experiments clearly prove the ascent of the sap
tiirough the woody part of the tree, which is easiiy
detected by boring the trunks at different depths
before their leaves are unfolded; and they observed,
also, the mucilaginous nature of the flowing sap,
" precipitating a kind of white coagulum or jelly,
which," says Ray, in a note preserved by Derham,
" may be well conceived to be the part, which every
year, between bark and tree turns to wood, and of
which the leaves and fruits are made. And it seems
to precipitate more when the tree is just ready to
put out leaves and begins to cease dropping, than
at its first bleeding." The accuracy of the leading
facts recorded by these ingenious men is confirmed
by subsequent observers, who have further pursued
the same subject, which is now sufficiently well
understood. The sap originates in the liquid v^
matters which are absorbed by the roots of plants ; \
they enter the minute cells of the ends of the
roots and permeate the cellular tissue. This sap
ascends in the plant, assisted by the evaporation
from the leaves. The sap ascends with consider-
able rapidity to the leaves, where it is subject to
changes, the result of physiological action. It
descends from the leaves, having had its chemical \
constitution altered, and is fit for the nutrition of
the plant. The sap ascends through the cellular
and woody tissue, especially in the layers of wood

3S HEROES OF SCIENCE.

not more than two years old. The hard heart-
wood does not convey sap, but in some trees, Hke
the poplar, sap moves in the very centre.

The elaborated sap returns from the leaves in a
slow stream, through the delicate cellular structures
of the bark, right down to the root, giving rise to
the cambium layer, from the inner surface of which
the annual layer of young wood is formed.

At this time Ray began to prepare for the press
his " CpMeetiojj^f Proverbs," a curious book in its
way, by which he is perhaps better known to the
generality of his countrymen, than by any other of
his literary labours.

The first edition was published in 1672, but the
work was subsequently much enlarged, and the
author may almost be said to have exhausted his
subject. From its very nature, delicacy and refine-
ment had often to be dispensed with, but this is
evidently not the fault or the aim of the writer.
His learning and critical acuteness diffuse light
over the whole, and make us overlook the coarse
vehicle of our instruction. The first edition of the
" Catalogue of English Plants," already mentioned,
came out in 1670, and the second in 1677. Their
great author gave his work to the world with that
diffidence for which he alone, perhaps, could per-
ceive any just foundation. It was a wonderful
book, considering that there was no recognized
authority to help the author, who, seeing that there
must be some real method in nature, strove to
arrange or classify plants by the similarity or

RAY. 39

dissimilarity of those structures which were of
the greatest importance. About this period the
Tiealth of Mr. Ray seems to have been considerably
impaired. He refused a tempting offer to travel
again on the Continent, as tutor to three young
noblemen ; nor could the powerful attractions of
Alpine botany, which was then to be studied,
overcome that reluctance to leaving home, which
arose from a feeble state of body. Indeed, this
very reluctance or listlessness is accounted for hy
the turn which his disorder took, as it terminated
in the jaundice. After this depressing complaint
had left him, Ray resumed his botanical travels at
home with fresh* alacrity, visiting the rich stores of
the north of England, with a companion named
Thomas Willisel, whose name and discoveries he
subsequently gratefully commemorated on many
occasions. Nothing forms a more striking feature
in Ray's character than the unreserved and
abundant commendation which he always gave to
his friends and fellow-labourers. Then unfortu-
nately an event occurred which called forth his
affectionate feelings. On the 3rd of July, 1672,
Mr. Willughby was unexpectedly carried off by
an acute disorder, in the thirty-seventh year of his
age. The care of his two infant sons was confided
by himself to Mr. Ray, who was also appointed
one of his five executors, and to whom he left an
annuity of sixty pounds for life. The eldest of
these youths was created a baronet at the age of
ten years, but died before he was twenty. Their

40 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

sister, Cassandra, afterwards married the Duke of
Chandos. Thomas, the younger son, was one of
the ten peers created, all on the same day, by
Queen Anne, and received the title of Lord
Middleton. The care of his pupils, and of the
literary concerns of their deceased parent, now
interrupted Mr. Ray's botanizing excursions, and
caused him also to decline the offer of Dr. Lister,
then a physician at York, to settle under his
roof. Bishop Wilkins did not long survive Mr.
Willughby, and his death made another chasm in
the scientific and social circle of our great natural
philosopher, who felt these losses as deeply and
tenderly as any man. He sought consolation in
a domestic attachment, fixing his choice on a
young woman of good parentage, whose name
was Margaret Oakley, and who resided in the
family at Middleton Hall. He was married at
the parish church, June 5th, 1673, being then in
the forty-fifth year of his age, and his bride about
twenty. This lady took a share in the early
education of his pupils, as far as concerned their
reading English. She is said to have been recom-
mended by her character, as well as by her person,
to the regard of her husband. She bore him three
daughters who, with their mother, survived him.

The first fruit of our author's leisure and retire-
ment was a book on a new classification of plants,
published in 1682. His principles of arrangement
are chiefly derived from the fruit. The regularity
and irregularity of flowers, which took the lead in

RAY. 41

the system of contemporary botanists, made no
part of that of Ray. It is remarkable that he
adopts the ancient primary division of plants into
trees, shrubs, and herbs, and that he blamed
Rivinus, one of his fellow-labourers, for abolishing
it, though his own prefatory remarks tend to
overset that principle, as a vulgar and casual one,
unworthy of a philosopher. That his system was
not merely a commodious artificial aid to practical
botany, but a philosophical clue to a correct
natural classification, he probably, like his fellow-
labourers for many years in this department,
believed, yet he was too modest and too learned to
think he had brought the new and arduous design
to perfection. For whatever he has incidentally or
deliberately thrown out respecting the value of his
labours, is often marked with more diffidence on
the subject of classification than any other,
great service that Ray did to^bolanyjaraajthe
shadowing the so-called natural system of classifi-
cation, which was to supersede the artiHcial system
"oPLinnaeus, which will be described in a future
page. He first applied his system to practical use
in a general " History of Plants," of which the first
volume, a thick folio, was published in 1686, and the
second in 1687. The third volume of the same work,
which is supplementary, came out in 1704. This
vast and critical compilation is still in use^^ a
book of reference, being particularly valuable as an
epitome of the contents of various rare and expen-
sive works, which ordinary libraries^cannot^ossess.

ince on .
[lejbre- \

42 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

The description of species is faithful and instructive,
the remarks original, bounded only by the whole
circuit of the botanical learning of that day; nor are
generic characters neglected, however vaguely they
are assumed. Specific differences do not enter
regularly into the author's plan, nor has he followed
any uniform rules of nomenclature. So ample a
transcript of the practical knowledge of such a
botanist cannot but be a treasure ; yet it is now
much neglected, few persons being learned enough
to use it with facility for want of figures and a
popular nomenclature ; and those who are, seldom
requiring its assistance.

But if the fame or the utility of Ray's botanical
work has neither of them been commensurate with
the expectations that might have been formed, a
little octavo volume which he gave to the world in
1690, amply supplied all such defects, and proved
the great corner-stone of his reputation in this
department of science. This was "A Methodical
Synopsis of British Wild Plants." The two
editions of his alphabetical catalogue of English
plants being sold off, and some pettifogging reasons
of his booksellers standing in the way of a third,
with any improvements, he remodelled the work,
throwing it into a systematic form, revising the
whole, supplying generic characters, with numerous
additions of species and various emendations and
remarks. The uses and medicinal qualities of the
plants are removed to the alphabetical index at the
end. A second edition of this "Synopsis" w^s

RAY. 43

published in 1693, but its author never prepared
another. The third, now most in use, was edited
twenty-eight years afterward by Dillenius. Of all
/the systematical and practical floras of any
country the second edition of Ray's " Synopsis '*
was the most perfect of his time,, and for many a
Jong^^j^r afterwards. " He examined every plant
recorde3~Tii"liis work, and even gathered most of
them himself He investigated their different
names with consummate accuracy ; and if the
clearness and precision of other authors had
equalled his, he would scarcely have committed
an error. It is difficult to find him in a mistake or
misconception respecting nature herself, though he
sometimes misapprehends the bad figures or lame
descriptions he was obliged to consult." Above a
hundred species are added in this second edition,
and the cryptogamic plants in particular are more
amply elucidated. The work led to much dis-
puting, but Ray took no delight in controversy ;
its inevitable asperities were foreign to his nature.
One of the biographers of Ray writes : " We must
not omit to notice that in the preface to both
editions of his ' Synopsis ' the learned author,
venerable for his character, his talents, and his \
profession, as well as by his noble adherence to »
principle in the most corrupt times, has taken
occasion to congratulate his country, and to pour
out his grateful effusions to Divine Providence in
a style worth}^ of Milt©n for the establishment of
religion, law, and liberty by the revolution which

44 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

placed King William on. the throne. An honest
'TEngh'shman, however retired in his habits and
pursuits, could not have withheld this tribute at
such a time, nor was any loyalty ever more per-
sonally disinterested than that of Ray." The year
1690 was the date of the first pubJicationlQflhls.
noble work on "The Wisdom of God in_Creatioi3,"
*bf 'which we have already spoken, and whose sale
through many editions was very extensive. In
1700 he printed a book more exclusively within
the sphere of his sacred profession, called " A Per-
suasive to a Holy Life," a rare performance oTTHe
kind at that day, being devoid of enOiusiasm,
mysticism, or cant, as well as of religious bigotry
or party spirit, " and employing the plain and solid
arguments of reason for the best of purposes." His
ITiree "Physico-Theological Discourses concerning
the Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of the World,"
of which the original materials had been collected
and prepared formerly at Cambridge, came out in
1692, and were reprinted the following year. A
third edition, superintended by Derham, was pub-
lished in 17 1 3. This able editor took up the same
subject himself, in a similar performance, the
materials of which, like Ray's, were first delivered
in sermons at Bow church, he having been ap-
pointed reader of Mr. Boyle's lectures.
Sp Ray studied animals as carefully as he did
/ plants, and his influence on zoology will be noticed
further on in this book, and he revised a translation
of Rauwolfif's travels, and gave a catalogue of

kAV. 45

Grecian, Syrian, Egyptian, and Cretan plants.
Ever wishing for the truth, he was led during a
correspondence with Rivinus, a foreign botanist, to
Tevise his system of the classification of plants, and to
TncTude that of his friend in it. Ray was impressed
with the greater importance of the seeds and fruits
of plants in classification than of the leaves and
floral envelopes ; Rivinus and others believed in
the superior importance of the flower as a means
of distinguishing and grouping plants. After due
consideration, Ray included part of the plan of his
friend, but it is certain that plants cannot be safely \
grouped, in every instance, by the similarity of their \
flowers.

All this correspondence and alteration of systems "yr
was extremely useful, for it led to the foundation
of what is called the natural system of classification,
in opposition to the artificial style, which was
founded by the great man whose life will be noticed
in the next chapter.

Ray lived a long, happy, and useful life, and
died at Black Notley, in a house of his own
building, in 1705, in the seventy-seventh year of
his age. A friend wrote of him : " In his dealings,
no man more strictly just ; in his conversation, no
man more humble, courteous, and affable ; towards
God no man more devout ; and towards the poor
and distressed no man more compassionate and
charitable according to his abilities." He was
buried, according to his own wish, at Black Notley ;
but he would not have his body buried in the

46 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

chancel of the church, choosing rather to repose
with his ancestors in the churchyard. Ray died
rich in honours, but not rich in money, as he had
to give up his Hving in the Church for conscience'
sake and conform as a layman. He was singularly
charitable in his opinions to others ; and as his
work has lasted until the present day, and has
influenced the progress of natural history, England
may well be proud of the blacksmith's son.

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort was born at Aix, in
France, in 1656. He was of a noble family, and
was educated with care, and had all the comforts
of life. Living, however, far away from the gay
scenes of Paris and in a country town, Tournefort
soon began to wander over the fields by himself,
ancl, like most boys, he loved to gather flowers.
More than this, he began to study them. But
such pleasures were not to be his at once, for his
parents destined him to be a priest, and he was
obliged to enter the Catholic seminary at Aix.
There he began to learn Latin, and in course of
time became a great proficient, speaking and
writing that language well, which at that time was
fairly known by every educated person. His theo-
logical studies were rather neglected by him, and
whenever he had the opportunity, he got books on
natural philosophy, chemistry, medicine, and, above
all, on botany. He studied them with great assi-
duity, and until he was twenty-one years of age.
Tournefort's father died in 1677, and the young
man then being independent, threw off his cap and

TOURNEFORT. 47

gown, said good-bye to the seminary and its priests,
and devoted himself forthwith and as long as life
lasted to the science of natural history, and especially
to botany.

He did not rest satisfied with the books of Plinius
and Aristoteles, or of the feeble botanists of his
youth, but he intended to study plants as they
grew, to discover their uses, and to endeavour to
classify and name them. Besides, he got a love
for the healing art, for one of his first teachers
was a chemist of Aix, who gave him lessons about
the common simple plants which were used in
medicine. So, after roaming over the country far
and wide, month after month, and collecting plants
in Provence, on the mountains of Dauphind and
Savoy, he went to Montpellier in 1679 to study
anatomy and medicine. The young student was
there for two years, and then he seems to have set
the example to his fellow-students, for botanical
excursions became a favourite method of passing
away time. In 168 1, in company with several
fellow-students, he went to . the Pyrenees, and wan-
dered about those difficult mountains, submitting
to much fatigue, cold, and hunger. Very robust
in health, and vigorous, his fatigues and hard fare
seemed to do him good, and at last he obtained a
very fine collection of the plants of that region. It
is always told that the ardent young botanist and
his friends got into trouble, being taken prisoners
more than once by Miguelites (smugglers) ; but it is
not likely that those people got much out of them.

48 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

On his return home he found that his reputation
as a practical botanist and as knowing useful
plants, had spread about, although he had not
written any work at that time. M. Fagon, a
distinguished botanist of the age, was physician to
Louis XIV., and had had many an excursion to
collect plants in Provence, Languedoc, and Auvergne,
before he became a great man at court. He got
plants from those localities, and had them planted
in the botanic gardens, of which the king was
fond ; and, fortunately for his prospects in life, he
discovered the medicinal uses of some natural
baths at Bareges, which he recommended to the
Due de Maine. On his return to Paris, M. Fagon
was made professor of botany and chemistry to
the Jardin des Plantes, and subsequently became
physician to the king and princes, and director of
the gardens. M. Fagon wanted help, for little was
known about the plants of the countries beyond
Europe, and he sought the services of a young and
wise botanist who had plenty of energy. He
destined young Tournefort for a great career, and
offered him the professorship of the Botanic
garden, intending that the young teacher, after a
while, should travel, and collect for the garden.
Finding the prospects good, Tournefort accepted
the position, and desirous of adding to the collec-
tion of plants, visited Spain again, and then Portugal.
Subsequently he came over to England, and then
collected in Holland. His name was well known
as that of a practical botanist, and the Dutch

TOURNEFORT. 49

offered him a professorship at Leyden. He was
elected to the highest scientific honour in France—
to the membership of the Academy of Science.
Two years afterwards Tournefort published his
first and great work, " The Elements of Botany,
or a method of Distinguishing Plants." This work
established his reputation all over Europe. It was
a very remarkable book. Tournefort travelled in
Asia Minor, Circassia, Georgia, Northern Assyria,
Candia, and Greece, and was the first man who
gave publicity to the truth that the same plants
are not found in all countries, and that most
countries have many plants peculiar to them. He
may be said to have founded the science of the
geographical distribution of plants. His descrip-
tions of plants were io,ooo in number; their
arrangement in species and genera was excellent.
Less praise must be given about the manner of his
separating the greater divisions of the plants one
from the other. Nevertheless, much of the work of
this great traveller has lasted until the present day
as good science. Plants are arranged in species,
which consist of individuals, having a close struc-
tural resemblance without any constant differences
of the form of the stem, roots, leaves, flowers, and
seeds. A genus is a group of species with a general
resemblance, some special character predominating.
An order is a number of more or less similar genera,
and a class contains orders which have greater
resemblance than those of another class.

All this classification relates to accurate observa-

I. E

50 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

tion and description, and then to comparison, and
the greater the knowledge of the botanist of species
and genera the more useful it is. There is a diffi-
culty in selecting those parts of a plant which
should be those on which the classification should
depend, and this was the stumbling-block with
these early botanists. Ray saw the value of the
seed and of the reproductive organs in classifica-
tion, and Tournefort, although he erred in classify-
ing his "classes" by the coloured part of the
flower or corolla, followed nature accurately in his
description, and reasoned upon the facts he had
discovered.

This botanist, who lived in the days of great
luxury, and when war was almost constant, pursued
his useful and simple career, and by his collections
alone, assisted in laying the foundations of botany
as a science. His travels in the East read like
romances, for the habits of Eastern nations were
then but little known ; and, moreover, the diligent
student was a scholar, and paid great attention to
the splendid antiquities which he constantly saw.
Tournefort studied the zoology of the countries he
passed through, and was an adept in mineralogy.
On his return from his long journey in the East he
was made Professor of Medicine to the College de
France. For the future his life was destined to be
quiet, happy it appears always to have been. Year
after year he laboured in arranging, cultivating, and
describing the treasure of plants he had brought
from the East and elsewhere. Moreover, he taught

TOURNEFORT. 5 1

as professor. His end was sudden, for he met
with an accident in the street, and was killed by a
passing waggon.

Tournefort s important work was the forming a
great amount of good knowledge about the species
of plants, and the arranging them in a systematic
order. But, as has been mentioned, he was a
founder of the science of the distribution of
plants. He appears to have laboured independently
of Ray, his English fellow-botanist, whose method
was the best of the two. There are twenty-two
classes in Tournefort's method, chiefly arranged, as
has been stated, by the form of the corolla, com-
paratively an unimportant structure. He dis-
tinguishes herbs and under-shrubs on the one
hand, from trees and shrubs on the other. His
system of classification was much used on the
Continent, until it was found to be less easy of
application than that of Linnaeus.

The life of Ray, by Dr. Derham and Sir J. E.
Smith, is to be found in the " Memorials of John
Ray," in the publications of the Ray Society, 1846.

I

■■'^^wt^^^^^J^^^

m

M

CHAPTER III.

THE LIFE OF LINNAEUS.

The science of plants begins to mature, to be reformed, and to be
made more exact.

Carl Linn^uS was born in the month of May,
1707, at Rashult, in the parish of Stenbrohult, in
Smaland, a province in the South of Sweden. His
father, Nils Linnaeus, was assistant minister of the
parish, and became, in process of time, its pastor
or rector, having married the daughter of his
predecessor.*

Our Carl was the first-born child of this
marriage. The family of Linnaeus had been
peasants, and a remarkably lofty linden tree, grow-
ing near their native place, is reputed to have
given origin to the names of Lindelius, or Tiliander
(Unden tree man). This origin of surnames taken
from natural objects is not uncommon in Sweden.

* The greater part of this memoir is taken from Miss Bright-
well's "Life of Linnaeus." Van Voorst, -^

LINN^US. 53

Of his father, Linnaeus has given us a few
glimpses in his diary, which prepossess us in his
favour, and make us wish that we knew more of
the worthy pastor. He was brought up by his
maternal uncle, Sven Tiliander, himself a clergy-
man, who educated the lad with his own children,
and, being fond of plants and gardening, inspired
in his nephew also a love for horticulture ; so that
this predilection appears to have been, in some
degree, hereditary. Young Nils was sent, in due
time, to school, and afterwards to the University of
Lund, where he had to struggle, for some years,
with poverty, and to apply very diligently to his
studies, in order that he might qualify himself for
the profession of his choice. Returning to his
native place, he was admitted to holy orders, and
was first curate, and afterwards co-pastor. Soon
after he attained to this degree, he was married to
the eldest daughter of the pastor, Christina Broder-
sonia, of whom her son says — " She possessed all
the virtues of her sex, and was an excellent
economist." No doubt she found ample room for
the exercise of this her distinguishing excellence,
for her husband's stipend was small, and she
brought him a goodly family of two sons and
three daughters. We may well believe that thrift
and frugality were necessary in the manage of this
small household. Linnaeus tells us that the young
couple welcomed their first-born with joy, and
reared him with the tenderest solicitude, " devoting
the utmost attention to impressing on his mind the

54 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

love of virtue, both in precept and example." He
has drawn a charming picture of his birthplace ;
it was situated in a very pleasant valley adjoining
the lake Moklen, which formed a bay, in the centre
of which stood the parish church of Stenbrohult.
On the banks of this fine lake, surrounded by hills
and valleys, woods and cultivated grounds, the
father of Linnaeus dwelt ; his garden and his fields
yielding him, at the same time, both amusement
and profit. The young Carl had no sooner left his
cradle than he was constantly in the garden, in
which, to use his own expression, he almost lived,
delighted with the brilliant hues and fragrance of
the beauteous shrubs and flowers which flourished
there.

In a letter to Baron Haller, written at the time
of his father's death, Linnaeus says : " He was an
uncommon lover of plants, and had a select garden
of numerous rare species." The favourite taste of
the father was quickly imbibed by the child, who
was his constant companion while he cultivated
the choice parterre, and eagerly tried to yield such
slight aid as his childish powers permitted. He
has recorded the first occasion when this innate
passion was decidedly displayed, or rather, perhaps,
when it sprung into consciousness. He was hardly
four years old when he chanced to accompany his
father to a rural fete at Moklen, and in the evening,
it being a pleasant season of the year, the guests
seated themselves on the flowery turf and listened
to the good pastor, who entertained them with

LINN^US. 55

remarks on the names and properties of the plants
which grew around them, showing them the roots
of succisa, tormentilla, orchides, etc. The little
Carl attended with the utmost eagerness to all he
saw and heard, and " from that time never ceased
harassing his father with questions about the name,
qualities, and nature of every plant he met with."
An unlooked-for result of the evening lecture, and
which seems to have cost the worthy man no small
trouble, for the child (not unlike other children, for
that matter) very often asked more than his father
was able to answer ; in addition to which he " used
immediately to forget all he had learned, and
especially the names of plants." To cure him of
this mischievous habit of inattention his father
refused to answer his questions unless he would
promise to remember what was told him, which
judicious management wrought a speedy and
effectual cure, insomuch that he tells us he ever
afterwards retained with ease, whatever he heard.
Besides this retentiveness of memory he possessed
an "astonishing quickness of sight," an almost
necessary qualification for the study of his favourite
science.

When the boy was eight years old a separate
plot of ground was assigned him by his father,
which was called " Carl's garden," and which he
soon stored with collections of plants and wild
flowers, gathered from the woods and fields around
his dwelling. At the same time he introduced a
variety of weeds, a treasure which it afterwards

56 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

cost his father no small pains to eradicate from his
flower-beds. The enterprising youngster even tried
the experiment of establishing a swarm of wild
bees and wasps in the garden, the result of which
was a devastating warfare waged against the do-
mestic hives.

At length it was thought desirable that these
flowery pursuits should give way to more serious
occupations, and he was committed to the charge
of a private tutor, whom he calls " a passionate and
morose man, better calculated for extinguishing a
youth's talents than for improving them." Nor
did he fare any better in his next remove, which
was to the grammar school at Wexio, where the
masters "pursued the same methods, preferring
stripes and punishments to encouragements and
admonitions." Probably the boy evinced his dis-
taste for such coercive measures, since we find him
soon removed from school to the care of another
private teacher, of whose mild and gentle disposition
he speaks in terms of approval. Nevertheless, he
too failed to inspire in his pupil a love for the
studies which were considered necessary as pre-
paratory to admission into holy orders ; for Nils
Linnaeus, desirous that his eldest son should become
his assistant and eventually his successor, designed
him for the Church. The boy had to work for three
years before he was promoted to a higher " form "
in the school, called the " circle ; " and the principal
use he seems to have made of the greater liberty
allowed him in this new rank, was to shun the usual

LINN^US. 57

exercises and give himself up to the study of his
favourite pursuit — the knowledge of flowers. He
acknowledges that his time was chiefly spent in
wandering about the outskirts of the town, and
making himself acquainted with all the plants he
could find. According to the system then pursued
in Sweden, it was necessary that youths should
pass from the schools or private tutors to a superior
seminary, called the Gymnasium, where the higher
branches of literature were taught ; and accordingly,
at the age of seventeen, the young Linnseus was
removed thither. But the original predilections of
his mind were then still more strikingly evinced
and matured. He showed the strongest distaste
for theological studies. In the metaphysics, ethics,
Greek and Hebrew, and theology his companions
far outstripped him ; but in mathematics, and par-
ticularly physics, he as much excelled them. His
favourite science, botany, which at that time was
wholly neglected, still continued to be his most
engrossing pursuit, and he soon contrived to form
small library of books in that branch. Among
'others he mentions the " Chloris Gothica " of Bro-
melius, and Rudbeck's " Hortus Upsaliensis," which
he confesses his inability then to comprehend
clearly. Nevertheless he says he "continued to
read them day and night, and committed them to
memory." His own copies of these books, "used
with the utmost care and neatness," were preserved
among his library, and after his death were sold
.with his collection. The zeal and eagerness he

58 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

evinced in these studies procured him, both among
masters and scholars, the name of "the Little
Botanist."

At the end of two years his father went to
Wexio, "hoping to hear from the preceptors the
most flattering account of his beloved son's progress
in his studies and morals." But he was sorely-
disappointed at learning that, unexceptionable as
the general behaviour of the youth had been, he
was evidently quite unfit for a divine ; and, indeed,
in the opinion of the authorities, it was a pity to
incur any further expense towards giving him a
learned education, some manual employment being
far more suitable for him. The youth, they thought,
would be well placed as apprentice to some tailor
or shoemaker !

Grieved at having thus lost his labour, and
supported his son at school for twelve years (an
expense he could very ill afford) to no purpose,
the venerable clergyman went his way, pondering
what course to pursue. It chanced that he was
suffering from a complaint which required medical
advice, and he betook himself to the house of
Dr. Rothmann, the provincial physician, also a
lecturer in physics, to whom, in the course of con-
versation, he mentioned his perplexity with refer-
ence to his son Carl. Rothmann suggested that,
though the opinions of his colleagues might be
correct as to the boy's inaptitude for theological
studies, there was good reason to believe he might
distinguish himself in the profession of medicine,

LINN^US. 59

and possibly that he might accomplish great things
in the pursuit of natural history. At the same
time he liberally offered, in case the father's
circumstances did not permit him to maintain his
son in a course of studies, to take him into his
own house, and provide for him during the year he
must remain at the gymnasium.

This generous proposal was gratefully accepted,
and the result was most satisfactory. Linnaeus
received from his benefactor a course of private
instructions in physiology with so much success,
that the youth was able to give a most accurate
report of all he had been taught. At the same
time, this worthy teacher put him into the right
method of studying botany, showing the necessity
of proceeding in a scientific manner, and directing
his attention to the system of Tournefort. The
very imperfections he found in this work stimu-
lated his desire for something more perfect, and
were, in this way, of use to the future naturalist.

The year following (1727) Linnaeus proceeded to
the University at Lund, furnished, as he has him-
self recorded, with a " not very creditable certifi-
cate." This curiosity, after its kind, was to the
effect that youth at school may be compared to
plants, which sometimes baffle all the skill of the
gardener, but, being transplanted to a different soil,
occasionally turn out well. With this view, and no
other, the bearer was sent to the University, which,
possibly, might prove propitious to his progress !

Happily, the young man had a friend at the

6o HEROES OF SCIENCE.

University, in his former preceptor — he of the mild
and gentle disposition — who kept back the doubt-
ful recommendation, and procured his matriculation
as one of his private pupils.

At Lund, Linnaeus lodged in the house of Dr.
Stobaeus, professor of medicine, and physician to
the king. This eminent man, perceiving the
industry of his lodger, and his acquirements in
natural science, allowed him free access to his
excellent museum of minerals, shells, and dried
plants ; and, highly delighted with the idea of a
hortus siccus, Linnaeus immediately began to col-
lect all the plants which grew in the vicinity, and to
"glue them upon paper." Still, he was denied the
privilege of access to the doctor's library ; but, as
it fell out, he managed to obtain that also. He
formed an acquaintance with a fellow-lodger, a
young German student, who enjoyed the advantage
he coveted, and, in return for teaching him the
principles of physiology, he obtained of this youth
books from Stobaeus's library. He passed whole
nights in reading the volumes thus clandestinely
procured ; but it happened that the mother of
Stobaeus, who was infirm and ailing, lay awake
several nights in succession, and seeing a light
constantly burning in Linnaeus's room, fearful of
fire, desired her son to chide the young Smalander
for his carelessness.

Two nights after, at midnight, the lad was sur-
prised by a visit from his host, who found him, to
his astonishment, diligently poring over his books.

LINN^US. 6 1

Being asked why he did not go to bed, and whence
he had procured the books, he was compelled to
confess everything. Stobaeus ordered him imme-
diately to go to bed ; and the next morning, calling
for him, gave him permission to make what use
he pleased of his library. From that time this
excellent man admitted the youth to the utmost
familiarity, received him at his own table, and
treated him even as a son.

While botanizing in the country, in the following
spring, Linnaeus was bitten in the right arm by a
venomous reptile, and so serious were the conse-
quences that his life was endangered. As soon as
he was partially recovered, he returned to his
father's house, in order to recruit his health during
the summer vacation, and while staying in Smaland
he was persuaded by his kind friend and benefactor,
Dr. Rothmann, to quit Lund for Upsala, as a
superior school of medicine, and affording besides,
many other advantages of which he could easily
avail himself

In this University — the first and most ancient
seat of Swedish learning, and the scene, in after-
years, of his greatness — our young student under-
went a severe process of training. Poor and
unknown, he had no means of adding to the scanty
pittance his parents were able to allow him.
Scarcely could they afford to give the small sum
of 200 silver ducats (about £S) towards the ex-
penses of his education there. In a short time
he found his pockets quite empty ; and having

62 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

no chance of obtaining private pupils, he vainly
looked for any other source of maintenance. In a
few words, he thus touchingly records the tale of
his suffering, and the first beam of hope that shone
across his path. As Petronius says, poverty is the
attendant of a good mind ; and Linnaeus was not
without it in this university, . . . he was obliged
to trust to chance for a meal, and in the article of
dress was reduced to such shifts that he was
obliged, when his shoes required mending, to patch
them with folded paper instead of sending them
to the cobbler.

Years afterwards, the most distinguished zoologist
France ever produced, M. de Lamarck, stated to a
friend, " I was poor, indeed, but I had not, like
Linnaeus, to gather up my fellow-students' old
shoes to wear."

He repented of his journey to Upsala, and of
his departure from the roof of Stobaeus ; but to
return to Lund was a tiresome and expensive
undertaking. Stobaeus, too, had taken it very ill,
that a pupil whom he loved so sincerely had left
that University without consulting him.

At this time Linnaeus, in spite of his great
industry and simple manner of living, naturally
had considerable anxieties about his success in life.

It chanced one day, in the autumn of the year
1728, whilst Linnaeus was very intently examining
some plants in the academical garden, there entered
a venerable old clergyman, who asked him what
he was about, whether he was acquainted with

LINN^US. 63

plants, whence he came, and how long he had been
prosecuting his studies ? To all these questions he
returned satisfactory answers, and was then invited
to accompany his interrogator to his house, which
proved to be that of Dr. Olaus Celsius.

This estimable and learned man, to whom
Scandinavia owes so much in regard to natural
history, had just returned from Stockholm, where
he had been engaged in preparing his celebrated
work upon the plants mentioned in the Holy
Scriptures, which he published in 1745, having
travelled to the East on purpose to make it
more complete. Little did Celsius imagine that
the youth, whom he first met, by chance, in the
academical garden at Upsala, was destined, in
after years, by his genius, to immortalize its fame.
He, however, soon discerned the merits of Lin-
naeus, took him under his protection, offering him
board and lodging in his own house, and allowing
him the full use of his library, which was very rich
in botanical books. Among all his patrons, Lin-
naeus appears to have dearly cherished the memory
of this venerable man, never referring to him but
in terms of reverence and gratitude. The friend-
ship and patronage of one so distinguished, did not
fail to procure for the youth the advantages he so
much needed. Before long, the son of Professor
Rudbeck, and other young men, became his private
pupils, and by this means his pecuniary wants were
supplied.

Nothing, however, seems to have given Linnseus

64 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

SO much satisfaction in reviewing the events of
this period of his early history, as the intimate
friendship he now contracted with a fellow-student,
named Artedi, who afterwards distinguished him-
self by his knowledge of fishes and umbelliferous
plants. To the picture he has drawn of his friend,
Linnaeus has added a slight sketch of himself.
There was a great difference in the personal ap-
pearance, as well as in the temperament and dis-
position of the two youths. Artedi was of a tall
and handsome figure, more serious, and of a
deliberate judgment ; whereas his friend was short
in stature and stout, hasty in temper, and of a
sanguine turn. The two companions pursued
their favourite studies with an honourable spirit of
emulation. They divided the kingdoms and pro-
vinces of nature between them, and while Linnaeus
yielded the palm to Artedi in ichthyology (the
science of fish), the latter acknowledged Linnaeus
to be his superior in entomology, or that of insects.
Each kept his discoveries to himself, though for no
great length of time, since not a day passed with-
out one surprising the other by narrating some new
fact, so that emulation produced mutual industry
of research, and stimulated each to new exertions.
Linnaeus was now in his twenty-second year,
about which time he met with a review of Le
Vaillant's treatise, " Sur la Structure des Fleurs "
("On the Structure of Flowers"), by which his
curiosity was excited to a close examination of the
stamens and pistils (the central and reproductive

LINN/EUS. 65

structures), and, perceiving the essential import-
ance of these parts of the plant, he formed the
design of a new method of arrangement, founded
upon these organs. This was the first dawning
idea of that great system upon which his subsequent
fame was based.

A flower of a complete kind consists of the parts
of the plant which reproduce or form the seed,
enclosed within two particular envelopes. The
envelopes of the flower are the beautifully coloured
parts called petals, which form the corolla, or inner
envelope, and the duller-coloured or green sepals
outside the corolla, and which form the calyx.

Protected by these coverings, are the central
parts or organs. Quite in the middle of the flower
is the ovary, made up of one or several portions —
the pistils, which contain the future seeds or ovules.
The top of the whole, which projects in the middle
of the flower, is the stigma, and the prolonged part
beneath it is the style, and this surmounts the
seed-case or ovary. Outside this central part, and
between it and the corolla, are the stamens, each
of which — for their number varies — may consist
of a stalk or filament, bearing an anther, which is
.coloured, and contains the pollen, or dust, which
fertilizes the ovule, by falling on to the stigma.

These central parts are the reproductive organs,
and are those which, above all others, are the most
important, for without them a plant cannot increase
and multiply, and would become extinct. The
floral envelopes, beautiful as they are, are not so

I. F

66 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

essential, and are of secondary importance in
classification. Now, in some kinds of plants the
stigma and the ovary exist in one individual and
the stamens in another. The plant which bears
the ovary is called the female, and that which has
the pollen-making part is termed the male. Hence
it is said that plants have sexes. But in a vast
number of plants these organs are combined in the
same individual. Linnaeus considered the stamen
to be of primary importance, and established eleven
classes of plants distinguished by the numbers of the
stamens, and these all relate to plants in which the
male and female organs are combined in the same
individual. Thus the red valerian has one stamen
only, and it was classed in monandriay the first part
of the word meaning •' one " and the last " male."
The lilac has two stamens, and was classed in the
diandria — " two male ; " and other plants were
classified up to those which have ten stamens, the
pink, for instance, as decandria. An eleventh class
included all plants which bear flowers containing
from twelve to nineteen stamens, such as migno-
nette. Then two more classes were invented to
comprise — i, plants with twenty or more stamens
placed on the calyx, as the cherry ; 2, others with
twenty or more stamens which are placed on stalks
rising from below the ovary, as in the buttercup.
Other classes were formed according to the relative
length of the stamens, as in the foxglove and wall-
flower, and also from the grouping of the stamens
in bundles. Then there were three very important

LlNN^tJS. (y-J

classes in which the sexes are in separate flowers.
Finally, the flowerless plants, such as the ferns,
lichens, and fungi, were united as cryptogamia,
having their organs of reproduction more or less
concealed.

The next part of the classification refers to
orders which are sub-divisions of classes. The
orders of the first thirteen classes, mentioned above,
are founded on the number of styles (or of stigmas
if these are absent), and the names given, relate to
the number and the term gynia, or female.

Thus the order monogynia includes plants of all
the thirteen classes that have only one style to each
flower, such as the primrose ; and so on, until poly-
gonia, or " many female " — plants of such an order,
having more than twelve styles, like the rose and
clematis.

One class has a very important division into two
orders, one of which has naked and the other
covered seeds ; another has orders from the shape
of the fruit or pod. Linnaeus divided the crypto-
gamia into six orders — the ferns, mosses, liverworts,
lichens, fungi, and seaweeds. There is no doubt
that this classification enables the name of a plant
to be discovered, if it has been properly described
and named, very easily, and it added to the facilities
of classificatory botany. But it did not bring plants
having many other and very important characters
together, and it separated many which are closely
allied by similar structures. It was and is called the
artificial system. It was not a natural classification

6S HEROES OF SCIENCE.

like that foreshadowed by Ray. The careful
distinction of the sexes of plants was, of course,
the foundation of the system, and to that Linnaeus
paid great attention. Writing a little treatise on
the subject, he showed it to Celsius, who com-
municated it to Dr. Rudbeck. This man, free
from the usual jealousy of the age, took Linnaeus
as his assistant, and asked him to lecture in the
botanical garden. Thus the young man became
a teacher in the very place where he had applied
the year before for the humble situation of gardener.
Dr. Rudbeck, moreover, took him into his house
as tutor to his children, and thus he had access
to a fine collection of books and drawings on
natural history subjects. His mornings were then
occupied in giving instruction to the students, and
his evenings in composing the new system and
meditating a general reformation in botanical
science. He had no time to waste at Upsala. It
will have been noticed how kindly Linnaeus was
treated by a few true lovers of science, and it was
greatly to the honour of the good simple people of
science-loving Scandinavia.

People imagine that the progress and prosperity
of scientific men depend upon themselves alone ;
but many a promising career has been arrested by
petty jealousy and the expression of ill will on the
part of those who are second-rate men of science.
On the other hand, truly distinguished scientific
men are mostly only too glad to assist earnest, hard-
working, and meritorious students. Linnaeus found

LINN^US. 69

that he was no exception to the rule that appears
to determine that a prosperous poor man shall have
enemies. He was opposed by a Dr. Rosen on his
return from foreign travel, but Linnaeus stood his
ground. But when his father suggested a voyage
into Lapland to collect plants, Linnaeus gladly
seized the opportunity, and after arrangements had
been made, he went to stay awhile at home.

Early in 1732 Linnaeus left his father's house,
to set out on his arduous undertaking. On his
way to Upsala he paid a visit to his former friend
and preceptor, Stobaeus, at Lund, and studied his
collection of minerals, the only branch of natural
history with which (he tells us) he was unacquainted.
He shortly after proceeded to Upsala, from which
place he set out on his journey alone. May 12th,
1732, "being at that time within half a day of
twenty-five years of age."

During this journey Linnaeus travelled over the
greater part of Lapland, skirting the boundaries of
Norway, and returned to Upsala by the eastern
side of the Bothnian Gulf, having performed a
journey of near four thousand English miles, mostly
on foot, in five months. He necessarily endured
many hardships and vast fatigue, and his life was
several times imperilled. Bogs and forests inter-
cepted his way, and food, even of the coarsest
description, was occasionally not easily procured ;
yet, amid all difficulties, his spirit was unflagging,
and obstacles only seemed to quicken his zeal.
The natural curiosities of the country, the manners

70 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

of the people, and the general features of the
various regions he traversed, all were observed and
written down for future use. He collected above a
hundred plants, entirely undescribed and unknown
before, and upon his return arranged all the flora
of Lapland according to his own favourite system,
and delivered an account of his journey publicly.

The result of his botanical observations was not
published for several years afterwards, during his
residence in Holland. This expedition was the
first and most difficult of all the six journeys of
Linnaeus. He spoke of it afterwards in one of
his academical addresses in these words : " My
journey through Lapland was particularly toil-
some, and I own that I was obliged to sustain
more hardships and dangers in that sole peregrina-
tion through the frontier of our northern world,
than in all the other travels I undertook in other
parts. But having once sustained the toils of
travelling, I buried in the oblivion of Lethe all the
dangers and difficulties I endured, the invaluable
fruits I reaped having compensated for every toil."
Writing to a friend on the same subject, he says :
"All my food in these fatiguing excursions con-
sisted, for the most part, of fish and reindeer's
milk. Bread, salt, and what is found everywhere
else, did but seldom recreate my palate. One of
the greatest nuisances which I met with in Lapland
was the immense number of flies. I used to keep
them off, by drawing a crape over my face." The
youthful traveller started on his adventurous journey

LINNiEUS. 71

"without encumbrances of any kind, and carried all
his baggage on his back," by which means alone he
was enabled to prosecute the objects he had in
view. Leaving Upsala by the northern gate, he
travelled for a considerable distance through fertile
corn-fields, bounded by hills, and the view termi-
nated by extensive forests. With respect to situa-
tion and variety of prospects, the young Swede
was of opinion that scarcely any city could stand
a comparison with this. At a short distance from
the gates he left, on the right. Old Upsala, the
place renowned for the worship of the primeval
gods of Sweden, and for the inauguration and
residence of her earliest king. Here, in days of
high antiquity, human sacrifices were offered at the
shrines of the pagan deities, and here our traveller
noticed the three large sepulchral mounds which
tradition has assigned to the bodies of Odin,
Frigga, and Thor.

" Cheered with the song of the charming lark,"
which attended his steps through the lowland, his
approach to the forest was welcomed by the red-
wing, " whose amorous warblings from the tops of
the spruce firs " appeared to him to rival the night-
ingale itself. As the summer was advancing, he
thought it not desirable to lose time by the way,
nor to stray far from the high road in the early part
of the tour ; but attentively observing what pre-
sented itself to him as he passed along, he noted
the various plants, animals, and insects, together
with the general features of the country.

72 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Arrived in the province of Medelpad, he ascended
Its highest mountain, leaving his horse *'tied to
an ancient Runic monumental stone." He found
several uncommon plants here ; and from the
summit, gazed on the country spread out below,
varied with plains and cultivated fields, villages,
lakes, and rivers — a most picturesque and romantic
region. The descent was very difficult, and even
dangerous. Leaving this mountain, he took his route
along the sea-shore, which was spread with the
wrecks of vessels, telling to the feeling heart of the
young traveller a sad tale of woe. *' How many
prayers, sighs, tears, vows, and lamentations — all,
alas ! in vain — rose to my imagination at this
melancholy spectacle ! " he exclaims. The sight
reminded him of a student who, going by sea from
Stockholm to Abo, experienced so severely the
terrors of the ocean, that he chose to walk back
round the head of the Bothnian Gulf, rather than
adventure himself again upon the deep. This
youth, afterwards a Professor at Abo, assumed
the surname of Tillands, expressive of his attach-
ment to terra Jirma.dLnd Linnaeus named in honour
of him, a plant which cannot bear wet.

In five or six days, Linnaeus reached Hernosand,
the principal town of Angermania, on the Bothnian
Gulf, and visited a tremendously steep and lofty
mountain called Skula, where was a cavern, which
he desired to explore. Here he was within a hair's
breadth of a fatal accident, for one of the peasants
who accompanied him, in climbing up, loosened a

p

LINN^US. 73

large stone, which was hurled down the track
Linnaeus had just left, and fell exactly on the spot
he had occupied. " If I had not (he says) provi-
dentially changed my route, nobody would ever
have heard of me more ; I was surrounded by fire
and smoke, and should certainly, but for the pro-
tecting hand of Providence, have been crushed to
pieces." From this point of the journey a change
came over the face of nature. The country was
covered over with snow, in some places inches
deep ; the pretty spring flowers disappeared, and
in their place nothing but wintry plants were
seen peeping through the snow. At length, on
the 23rd of May, he reached Umoea, in West
Bothnia, where he turned out of the main road to
the left, designing to visit Lycksele, Lapmark ; by
which means he lost the advantage of the regular
post horses, and found the ways so narrow and
intricate, that at every step he stumbled. " In this
dreary wilderness I began to feel very solitary, and
to long earnestly for a companion (he says) ; the
few inhabitants I met had a foreign accent, and
always concluded their sentences with an adjective."
As the night shut in, the way-worn traveller
began also to long for a good meal, and has thus
recorded the result of his application, on arriving
at a village where he passed the night : — " On my
inquiring what I could have for supper, they set
before me the breast of a cock of the woods, which
had been shot and dressed some time the preceding
year. Its aspect was not very inviting j but the

74 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

taste proved delicious, and I found, with pleasure,
that these poor Laplanders know better than some
of their more opulent neighbours, how to employ
the good things which God has bestowed upon
them."

The bird is prepared by a process of salting and
drying, and will keep even for three years, if neces-
sary. Linnaeus next proceeded up the river of
Umoea as far as Lycksele, where he was hospitably
received by the worthy pastor of the place ; and
the next day, being Whit-Sunday, he stayed there,
and would fain have remained longer ; but, for fear
of the floods impeding his journey, he hastened his
departure on the morrow, and on the ist of June
entered the territories of the native Laplanders,
passing through wild forests, with no traces of
roads. A more desolate picture of wretchedness
than this region presented, could hardly be
imagined. It was flooded by the rivers, and the
bogs were utterly impassable. At every step the
water was above the knees, and the feet felt the ice
at the bottom. "We pursued our journey (con-
tinues the diary) with considerable labour and
difficulty all night long, if that might be called
night which was as light as the day, the sun dis-
appearing for half an hour only, and the temper-
ature of the air being rather cold." The poor
inhabitants had themselves, at this season, nothing
to eat but a scanty supply of fish ; for they had
not begun to kill their reindeer, nor to milk them.
In addition to these evils, the villainous bites of

i

LiNNiEus. ;5

the gnats and other insects tortured the unhappy
travellers, till at length he exclaims — "I had now
my fill of travelling ! "

Gladly would he have returned by the way he
came, but he could find no road back ; and even
the hardy Laplanders themselves, " born to labour,
as the birds to fly," could not help complain-
ing, and declared they had never been in such
extremity before. It is evident that even the
robust frame of Linnaeus was beginning to yield
to the combined effects of fatigue, exhaustion, and
hunger. He at length obtained some food which
he was able to eat, and after incredible exertions
succeeded in retracing his steps to the river, on
which he again embarked, and returned to Umoea ;
having, as he ingenuously acknowledged, " with the
thoughtlessness of youth, undertaken more than he
was able to perform."

From Umoea, Linnaeus proceeded to Pithoea,
which he reached after two days' journey, "the
night being as pleasant for travelling as the day."
He notices the beauty of the fresh shoots of the
spruce fir, which constitute one of the greatest
ornaments of the forests which adorn this part of
Sweden.

Being anxious to proceed with all haste, in order
if possible to reach the Alps of Lulean Lapland,
" in time to see the sun above the horizon at mid-
night, which is beheld then to the best advantage,"
the traveller made no longer stay at Lulea than
was needful for the purposes of exploring the

y6 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

neighbouring coast and islands. He has noted the
various entomological and other specimens he ob-
served, and, after admiring the beauty of some of
them, exclaims, in a sort of rapture — " The observer
of nature sees" with admiration that the whole
world is full of the glory of God."

During this voyage, Swanberg, who has taken
great delight in Linnaeus's conversation, offered to
instruct him in the art of assaying within a very
short time, if he would agree to visit Calix, on his
way homeward. At Quickjock, the wife of the
curate provided our traveller with stores sufficient
for eight days, and procured him a Laplander,
whose assistance as interpreter and servant was
highly necessary.

"On my first ascending these wild Alps (he says),
I felt as if in a new world. Here were no forests
to be seen, but mountains upon mountains, larger
and larger, as I advanced, all covered with snow ;
no road, no tracks, nor any sign of inhabitants
were visible. The declining sun never disappeared
sufficiently to allow any cooling shade, and by
climbing to the more elevated parts of these lofty
mountains, I could see it at midnight, above the
horizon. This spectacle I considered as not one of
the least of nature's miracles, for what inhabitant
of other countries would not wish to behold it?
O Lord, how wonderful are thy works ! "

In this frozen region there were no traces of
verdure, save in the deep valleys between the
mountains. Very few birds were visible, except

LINN^US. 7^

some ptarmigans, those hardy inhabitants of the
bleak mountain tops. A pretty Httle incident,
recorded by Linnaeus, shows so kind a heart that
it must not be omitted here. '' The little Alpine
variety of the ptarmigan was now accompanied by
its young. I caught one of these, upon which the
hen ran so close to me that I could easily have
taken her also. She kept continually jumping
round and round me, but I thought it a pity to
deprive the tender brood of their mother ; neither
would my compassion for the mother allow me
long to detain her offspring, which I returned to
her in safety."

After a long and wearisome journey along these
mountain passes, the traveller reached one of the
cottages of the country. Here the inhabitants,
sixteen in number, received him kindly, and gave
him two reindeer skins to sleep between. In the
morning some hundreds of reindeer came home to
be milked, and it amazed the stranger to perceive
that, although to his eyes they were all perfectly
alike, yet each of the herd had its appropriate
name, and was readily distinguished by the owners.

Steering his course south-west, Linnaeus pro-
ceeded to the lofty ice mountains, or '* main ridge
of the country," which he had no sooner reached,
than a storm overtook him, accompanied by a
shower of thin pieces of ice, which soon encrusted
his garments. The cold was intense, and the whole
country was one dazzling waste. No sooner, how-
ever, had he crossed the summit of the ridge than

yS HEROES OF SCIENCE.

a change was perceptible, and soon, from the lofty
heights, he beheld the ample forests of Norway
lying far beneath. The whole appearance of the
country was perfectly green, and, notwithstanding
its vast extent, looked like a garden in miniature.
The descent was slow and long protracted, but at
length he reached the plains, of which he had
enjoyed so glorious a' prospect. " Nothing (he ex-
claims) could be more delightful to my feelings
than this transition from all the severity of winter,
to the warmth and beauty of summer. Oh ! how
most lovely of all is summer ! The verdant herb-
age, the sweet-scented clover, the tall grass reaching
up to my arms, the grateful flavour of the wild
fruits, and the fine weather that welcomed me at
the foot of these Alps, seemed to refresh me both
in mind and body."

Here Linnaeus found himself close to the sea-
coast, and he went to sea in a boat to search for
the natural productions of that element. He would
fain have approached the celebrated whirlpool,
called the Maelstrom, but he found no one willing
to venture it. On the 13th of July, he arrived at
the parsonage house of Rorstadt, from the occupant
of which, himself a traveller and a naturalist, Lin-
naeus received a cordial welcome. A rather signi-
ficant entry in Linnaeus' diary tells us that here,
"in this far distant nook of the wide peopled
earth," the young enthusiast found an object of
surpassing interest. " The pastor (he says) has a
handsome daughter, named Sarah Rask, eighteen

LINN.EUS. 79

years of age ; she seemed to me uncommonly
beautiful." The next morning, Linnaeus took his
leave of this elysium, and proceeded on his way.
Climbing the mountains again, he found a work
of "no small fatigue and exhaustion," and he
has given us a most painful account of the sub-
sequent route he pursued towards the Alps of
Tornea. "What I endured," he concludes, "is
hardly to be described ; how many weary steps
I had to set, the precipices that came in my way,
and my excessive fatigue. Water was our only
drink during the journey, and it never appeared
so refreshing as when we sucked it out of the
melting snow." At length, tired of advancing
further into this inhospitable country, he deter-
mined to return to Quickjock. In the course of
his journey thither his life was twice endangered,
but at length he reached the place of his destina-
tion, "having been four weeks without tasting
bread." After resting some days at Quickjock,
Linnaeus descended the river again to Lulea, where
he " learned the art of assaying from the mine-
master, Swanberg, at Calix, in two days and a
night," and thence his journey was continued
through Tornea. He had intended to visit the
mountains, but before he could get thither the
winter set in, and he was obliged to return along
the coast on the eastern side of the Bothnian Gulf.
The last entry in his journal is dated October loth,
and is as follows: "About one o'clock, P.M., I
arrived safe at Upsala. To the Maker and Pre-

So HEROES OF SCIENCE.

server of all things be praise, honour, and glory
for ever ! "

At first, indeed, he seemed to reap but a humble
reward for his toils. On his arrival at home, he
presented to the Academy of Sciences an account
of his expedition, which obtained their approbation,
and they gave him 112 silver dollars (not more
than ;^io) — his travelling expenses. In the
following spring, he began a private course of
lectures on the art of assaying (which he had
learned so cleverly from his chance companion
during the Lapland journey). This art had never
been taught at Upsala before ; and the novelty of
the subject, the skilful manner in which he com-
municated instructions, and the reasonable terms
he exacted, secured Linnaeus a considerable number
of pupils.

¥

CHAPTER IV.

THE LIFE OF LINN.EUS {Coiltiimed).

The publication and reception of the artificial system of
classifying plants.

LiNN^US had many difficulties to contend with,
however. He found his old rival, Rosen, at work ;
and Linnaeus accuses this man of the meanness of
obtaining, partly by entreaty, partly by threats, his
manuscript lectures on botany, which he valued
more than anything he possessed, and which he
afterwards detected his rival in copying. This
formidable enemy next proceeded to prevent
Linnaeus from obtaining the means of subsistence.
There was no room for the young botanist at
Upsala, and, indeed, botany appeared to be a bad
profession. So he turned again to mineralogy, and
got up a students' expedition to Fahlun and Dale-
carlia. He settled down at Fahlun for a while as
a teacher, and found himself as it were in a new
world, where everybody loved and assisted him. He
earned money by his medical knowledge. The

82 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Bishop of Abo asked Linnaeus to give him some
instruction in botany and mineralogy, and became
much attached to the young man. The bishop
advised Linnaeus to go abroad and get his doctor's
degree, and also to marry. The last was as difficult
as the first, but being more to his taste at the
time, he wooed the daughter of Dr. John Moroea,
a man of considerable property. The young
student made his proposals with considerable trepi-
dation, and had he not been satisfied that the lady
was willing, he would have let the matter alone.
The worthy doctor thought well of Linnaeus, but
not of his prospects in life, but he decided that
after a lapse of three years he would give his reply.
Thus, at the age of twenty-nine, Linnaeus found him-
self with a betrothed, no occupation, and a great
deal of knowledge and perseverance. He had to live,
and so he determined to stick to physic, and to get
a doctor's degree. He contrived to scrape together
£1$, and went on his way to the University of
Harderwyk. First, like a good son, he went to see
his father, and to console him on the loss of the
mother — a loss greatly felt by the young man at
this critical period of his life. Then Linnaeus
journeyed to the south, and arrived at Hamburg,
where his whole time was employed in viewing the
fine garden, and everything else worthy of atten-
tion. The public library he examined, and also
the principal cabinets of natural history, and he
read there for the first time the botanical works
of Ray, whom he esteemed as one of the most

LINNiEUS. 83

penetrating observers of the natural affinity of
plants. Amsterdam was the next place, and then
Harderwyk, where, after being examined, and
publishing a paper on the cure of intermittent
fever, he was dubbed M.D. He left for Ley den,
and met Dr. Gronovius, to whom he showed his
classification. Gronovius was so delighted with it
that he had it published at his own expense in
eight large sheets. He called on the celebrated
Boerhaave, and after eight days' waiting obtained
an audience. Boerhaave took a liking to the young
man, and recommended him to Dr. Burmann, of
Amsterdam, in whose house he remained for many
months. During that time Linnaeus printed his
" Fundamenta Botanica," of which a great writer
has said, " it contains the very essence of botanical
philosophy, and has never been superseded nor
refuted." He commended his book to his friend
Artedi, who had just finished a work on Fishes.
Death put an end to this friendship with Artedi,
who was accidentally drowned.

This stay at Amsterdam determined the future
career of Linnaeus, for he was introduced there to
an English banker, Mr. Clifford, whose garden at
Hartecoup was one of the finest in the world.
Linnaeus removed to Mr. Clifford's house, where he
said he lived like a prince, had one of the finest
gardens in the world under his inspection, per-
mission to procure all the plants that were wanted
in the garden and such books as were not to be
found in the library, and of course enjoyed all the

84 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

advantages he could wish for, in his botanical
studies, to which he devoted himself day and night.
He got his description of the plants of Lapland
printed, and everybody recognized the charms of
the descriptions in the book.

In the year 1736, Linnaeus paid a visit to Eng-
land. He did so by the request, and at the
expense, of Mr. Clifford, who was desirous to pro-
cure various plants for his collection, and that he
should communicate with the most celebrated
botanists and horticulturists of the day. He
carried with him a letter from Boerhaave to Sir
Hans Sloane, who was a mere rich collector in
natural history, and afterwards founder of the
British Museum. This letter is still preserved
among the archives of that institution, and it is
written in the strongest language of recommenda-
tion. Notwithstanding such an honourable intro-
duction, however, the old baronet, who was a sort
of highly cultivated curiosity-shop keeper and not
a scientific man, was indisposed to do justice to
the merits of a young man whose innovations on
established systems he viewed with suspicion and
dislike. He therefore treated the stranger with
coldness, and dismissed him without any marks of
regard. One of the principal objects of interest to
Linnaeus, in this country, was the botanical garden
at Chelsea ; and from the keeper of that collection,
Philip Miller, an excellent botanist, he experienced
much attention, and was suppHed with many rare
plants. The garden at Chelsea was the first in

k

LINN^US. 85

reat Britain that was subsequently arranged ac-
cording to the Linnsean system. Dr. Shaw, the
Oriental traveller, Professor Martyn, Peter Collin-
son, and many other men of true science, received
Linnaeus consistently with his testimonials, and
admiring his genius, forwarded his objects by all
the means in their power, and, on his return to
the Continent, continued to correspond with him
on subjects of mutual interest in science.

From London our traveller proceeded to Oxford,
where he paid his respects to the celebrated
Dillenius, justly considered one of the first
botanists of the time. This learned man was not
by any means disposed to regard Linnaeus favour-
ably. He had received from Gronovius a sheet of
the " Genera Plantarum," and conceiving it to be
written in opposition to him, was irate, and, point-
ing to the young Swede, said to a gentleman who
chanced to be in his company at the moment of
Linnaeus's entry, " See, this is the young man who
confounds all botany!" Linnaeus did not under-
stand English, but the word " confound," so similar
to the Latin confundere^ let him into the secret of
the professor's words. He, however, showed no
sign of comprehending him.

Linnaeus almost despaired of gaining the friend-
ship of this learned man, and obtaining from him
the plants he wanted. At length, on the third day
of his visit to Oxford, he went to take leave of
Dillenius, and, in parting, said, " I have but one
request to make of you ; will you tell me why you

86 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

called me, the other day, the person who confounds
all botany ? " Unable to evade so direct a
question, Dillenius took him to his library, and
showed him the sheet of his genera which he had
obtained. It was marked in sundry places with
notes of query. " What signify these marks ? "
said Linnaeus. " They signify all the false genera
of plants in your book," answered the other. This
challenge led to an explanation, in which Linnaeus
proved his accuracy in every instance. The result
was an entire change on the part of Dillenius, who
afterwards detained Linnaeus with him a month,
and found so much satisfaction in his company that
he kept him always in close converse, scarce leaving
him an hour to himself At last he parted from
him with tears in his eyes, after making him the
offer to stay and share his salary, which would
have sufficed for them both.

Linnaeus never learned any language, not even
Dutch, although he lived three years in Holland.
" Nevertheless," he says, " I found my way every-
where well and happily." Despite this great
obstacle, Linnaeus appears to have counted among
his friends and correspondents some of the fair
sex, in several countries. Lady Ann Monson in
London, and Mrs. Blackburne at Oxford, were
among this number ; and he had a most enthusi-
astic admirer in Miss Jane Golden, of America,
who was introduced to his notice by one of his
correspondents, as the only lady known to be
scientifically acquainted with the Linnaean system.

LINN^US. ^7

She had drawn and described four hundred
plants, according to his method, using English
terms.

Pleased with the favour and interest thus mani-
fested, Linnaeus acknowledged his sense of them,
by preserving the names of these ladies in the vege-
table kingdom, and, among others, he named two
genera of beautiful plants, Monsonia and Coldenia.
The study of botany was so greatly promoted and
facilitated by the easy and pleasant method intro-
duced by Linnaeus, that it is no wonder the ladies
acknowledged, with gratitude, their obligation to
the naturalist who first originated a method by
which this delightful study could be brought
within the attainment of all who loved it.

Linnaeus wished to visit Paris, and travelled by
way of Ley den, where he enjoyed the society of
Lieberkiihn, a professor possessed of "incom-
parable microscopes." He stopped there until the
spring of 1738, and not long before his departure,
he had an affecting interview with the great
Boerhaave, then on his death-bed. This illustrious
man, who had proved himself so generous a friend
to the young naturalist, took a sorrowful and
affectionate leave of him. His parting words were :
" I have lived out my time, and done what I could ;
may God preserve thee, from whom the world
expects much more. Farewell, dear Linnaeus ! "
Linnaeus fell ill, and was attended by his fellow-
labourer. Von Swieten, and on his recovery Mr.
Clifford sent him for a tour into Brabant. Thence

88 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

he went to Paris, saw the Jussieus and Reaumur,
and was admitted a coresponding member of the
Academy of Science. Leaving Paris, he went
northwards to see his father, and then to his love.
The course of true love had run very crookedly,
for a mutual friend, who had been the medium of
the correspondence of the lovers, fell in love with
the lady himself. She was true, however, and they
were finally betrothed. It was strange that the
greatest botanist of the day could not get a living
out of his science, and it is not to the credit of his
native country. Again Linnaeus had to take to
physic, and settling at Stockholm, found that the
people would not trust him with the cure of their
dogs, much less with that of themselves. Abroad
he had been honoured everywhere, and in his own
country he was a nobody. All of a sudden things
changed, he cured somebody, and everybody went
to him to be cured. Then his star began to shine,
the people of Upsala began to remember him.
Count Tessin, who had been tutor to the King of
Sweden, and who was a lover of natural history,
procured him a salary of two hundred ducats a
year, on condition that he would give public
lectures on botany and mineralogy. Linnaeus wrote
of this good friend : " He received me, a stranger,
on my return ; he obtained me a salary from the
States, the appointment of physician to the
Admiralty, the professorship of Botany at Upsala,
the title of Dean of the College of Physicians, the
favour of two kings, and recommended me by a

b

LINN/EUS. 89

medal, to posterity." Having a good income at
last, Linnaeus entreated that his marriage might not
longer be delayed. He married Sara Elizabeth
Moroea, at her father's home near Fahlun.

One of Linnaeus's biographers says, " He was
fonder, on the whole, of meddling with plants than
with patients ; " and in the true spirit of science,
Linnaeus gave up his lucrative practice to settle
down as Professor of Botany to the University of
Upsala. It was the summit of his wishes, and in
1 74 1 he began to reside at Upsala, which was to be
his future home.

His zeal, talents, and widespread renown soon
produced the desired effect, and in a few years the
garden at Upsala ranked equal, if not superior, to
similar institutions in Europe. Contributions to
its stores continually poured in from all quarters,
and the most celebrated botanists vied with each
other in presenting the treasures of every region
and climate of the globe to its distinguished super-
intendent. Six years after the establishment of
this garden, the new professor published its de-
scription. The numbers of the foreign species of
plants in it at that time, amounted to one thousand
one hundred. He was filled with delight when he
beheld these fruits of his labours. As a teacher
and lecturer, Linnaeus distinguished himself in a
particular manner. His old students always spoke
well of his teaching, and he trained some of the
most distinguished botanists in Europe.

The names of Kalm, Thunberg, Sparrman, So-

90 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

lander, and Fabricius, for instance, are well known
in the scientific world ; and there is perhaps nothing
more truly honourable to the memory of their
great master, than the fact that he was the
founder of such a school of able and enterprising
men.

Linnaeus impressed upon his students, and took
care to remember in his own writings, that it was
absolutely necessary to be exact in botanical
descriptions — that the genus should be properly
named, and that it should represent an idea into
which certain species could enter.

To the poor, and even to the rich, foreign students
who resided at Upsala entirely on his account, he
was most generous, refusing the perquisites which
he should have received for his lectures. To the
former he remitted the money from purely benevo-
lent motives, while he declined it from the others,
that he might convince them how truly proud he
was of his science, so that he would fain make it
free of cost to those who sought after it. One
of them having repeatedly urged Linnaeus to accept
a Swedish bank-note as an acknowledgment for the
pains he had taken to teach him, he said, "Tell
me candidly, are you rich, and can you afford
it ? Can you well spare this money on your return
to Germany ? If you can, then give the note to
my wife ; but, if you be poor, so help me Heaven,
I will take not a single farthing from you." " You
are the only Swiss that visits me, and I feel a
pleasure in telling you all I know, gratis," was his

)

LINN^US. 91

answer to another, who importuned him in the
same manner. It was evident that he was never
so much at home, so entirely happy, as in his
garden, and while searching into the secrets and
hidden properties and workings of nature. Hence
he reckoned it among the choicest favours vouch-
safed him by Providence, that he had been " in-
spired with an inclination for science so passionate,
as to become the source of highest delight to him."
His diligence and minute observation were con-
tinually adding to his knowledge, and imparting
some fresh light in the study he loved. Indeed, after
mentioning with evident satisfaction the honours
showed him, Linnaeus somewhat significantly, and
very curtly, adds, "Thus was he obliged to be a
courtier, contrary to his inclination." From his
own account of his personal appearance we learn
that he was a little below the standard height, and
of a strong and compact figure. He rather stooped
in walking, having contracted this habit from the
frequent examination of plants and other objects.
His head was large, and a good deal raised behind,
and there was a wart on the side of his cheek.
His hair was of a dark brown, till silvered by age,
when his brow became much furrowed and wrinkled.
His eyes were brown, bright and piercing, and his
sight exceedingly keen. His ear, too, was very
acute, and quick in catching every sound, except
that of music, in which he took no delight.

His natural temperament, he tells us, was viva-
cious ; prompt to joy, sorrow, and anger, but the

92 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

latter was speedily appeased, and he was so averse
to disputes that he never would answer any of his
numerous assailants. In his early days he was full
of energy and spirit, and through life his move-
ments were rapid and agile. In his habits he
observed the strictest temperance and method. He
never delayed anything he had to do, and noted
down immediately what he wished to remember.
He has recorded that he never neglected a lecture ;
and by rigid economy of time, and a regular and
exact distribution of the hours, he completed those
extraordinary labours which remain lasting proofs
of his talents, acuteness, and industry.

Of his wife, Linnaeus makes honourable mention,
and numbers her as among the choice gifts be-
stowed on him. " She was," he says, " the wife for
whom he most wished, and who managed his
household affairs while he was engaged in laborious
studies."

The year 1764 was marked by several events of
domestic interest in the life of Linnaeus. Early in
the spring he was attacked by a violent pleurisy,
which threatened to cut short his existence. He
relates how, with great difficulty, and through the
kind assistance and consummate skill of Rosen, his
present friend and old enemy, he was brought safely
through the crisis. It is truly pleasing to read in
his private memoranda, the gratitude he felt to his
old rival, and the expressions of intimate regard
which thenceforward prevailed between them. Re-
covered from this illness, Linnaeus retired to Ham-

LINN^US. 93

marby, to enjoy the fresh invigorating air of the
country, and to celebrate his " Silfer BroUop," a
Swedish custom of commemorating the twenty-
fifth return of the wedding day. One of his most
celebrated pupils, Professor Fabricius, has given
some interesting particulars respecting his eminent
master at this period of his life.

" For two whole years," he says, " I was so
fortunate as to enjoy his instruction, guidance, and
confidential friendship. When I became acquainted
with the Chevalier von Linne, although he had
not attained his sixtieth year, increasing age had
already furrowed his brow with wrinkles. His
countenance was open, almost constantly serene, and
bore great resemblance to his portrait in the book
called Species Plantarum. But his eyes, of all the
eyes I ever saw, were the most beautiful. They
certainly were but small, but they shone with a
brilliancy, and had a degree of penetration, such as
I never observed in another man. His mind was
noble and elevated, though I well know some
persons have accused him of several faults. But
his greatest excellence consisted in the systematic
order of his thoughts. Whatever he did or said
was faithful to order, truth, and regularity. His
passions were strong and violent, his heart open
to every impression of joy, and he loved jocularity,
conviviality, and good living, An excellent com-
panion, he was pleasant in conversation, and full of
entertaining stories ; at the same time, suddenly
roused to anger, he was boisterous and violent, but

94 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

immediately his displeasure subsided, and he was
all good-humour again. His friendship was sure
and invariable, science being generally its basis ;
and every one who knew him must be aware what
concern he always manifested for his pupils, and
with how much zeal they returned his friendship.
In summer we followed him into the country. Our
life was then much happier. Our dwelling was
about a quarter of a league distant from his house
at Hammarby, in a farm. He rose very early in
summer, mostly about four o'clock. At six he
came to us, because his house was then building,
breakfasted with us, and gave lectures upon the
natural orders of plants as long as he pleased, and
generally till about ten o'clock. We then wan-
dered about among the neighbouring rocks, the
productions of which afforded us plenty of enter-
tainment. In the afternoon we went to his garden,
and in the evening mostly played at the Swedish
game of trissett, in company with the ladies.
Occasionally, the whole family came to spend the
day with us, and then we sent for a peasant, who
played on an instrument resembling a violin, to
which we danced in the barn of our farm-house ;
and though the company was but small, and the
dances superlatively rustic, we passed the time
merrily. While we danced, Linnaeus sat looking on,
and smoking his pipe ; sometimes, though very
rarely, he danced a Polish dance, in which he ex-
celled every one of us young men. He was
exceedingly delighted when he saw us in high

LINN^US. PS-

glee, nay, even if we became noisy. His only
anxiety was, that we might be well entertained.
Those days, those hours, will never be erased from
my memory, and every remembrance of them is
grateful to my heart ! "

He seems, before sending it, to have added at
the close a sort of summary of his deeds, his
merits, his honours, and his obligations. With the
scrupulous care, and love of truth and justice,
which always characterized him, he reckoned up,
under the latter head, the various aids afforded
him by his pupils and friends ; and, conscious of his
higher obligations, he enumerated the favours he
had received from the Divine hand which he ac-
knowledged had led and prospered him. He had
permitted him to visit His secret council chambers,
and to see more of the creation than any mortal
before him, and given him greater knowledge of
natural history than any one had hitherto acquired.
Even beneath the pressure of increasing infirmities,
the fondness of Linnaeus for his beloved studies
continued undiminished, and his desire of adding
to his knowledge was keen as ever. Some of his
letters at this period are full of vivacity, and
strikingly express the ardour of his zeal. An idea
of their spirit may be gained from a short extract
taken from one, dated August 8th, 1771. "I re-
ceived an hour ago," he writes, " yours of the i6th
July, nor did I ever get a more welcome letter, as
it contains the happy tidings of my dear Solander's
safe return. Thanks and glory to God, who has

96 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

protected him through the dangers of such a
voyage. If I were not bound fast here, by sixty-
four years of age and a worn-out body, I would
this very day set out for London, to see this great
hero in botany. Moses was not permitted to enter
Palestine, but only to view it from a distance ; so
I conceive an idea in my mind of the acquisitions
and treasures of those who have visited every part
of the globe."

In the spring cf 1774, while lecturing in the
Botanic Garden, he suffered an attack of apoplexy,
the debilitating effects of which obliged him to re-
linquish all active professional duties, and to close
his literary occupations. In 1776 a second seizure
supervened, which rendered him paralytic on the
right side, and impaired his mental powers so much
that he became a distressing spectacle. Yet, even
then, with the natural flow of cheerfulness so pecu-
liar to him, he thus described his own situation : —
" Linnaeus limps, can hardly walk, speaks unin-
telligibly, and is scarce able to write." Nature
remained, to the last, his sole comfort and relief.
He used to be carried to his museum, where he
gazed on the treasures he had collected with so
much care and labour, and as long as possible he
continued to manifest peculiar delight in examin-
ing the rarities and new productions which had
been latterly added to them by some of his pupils.

It is scarcely possible to find a more striking
illustration of the " ruling passion strong in death,"
than is afforded in the instance of Linnaeus. Lin-

LINN^US. 97

gerlng and painful were the last twelve months of
his existence ; but at length, on the loth January,
1778, he gently expired in his sleep, in the seventy-
first year of his age. The death of Linnaeus was
regarded, in Sweden, as a national calamity. The
whole University went into mourning, and all the
professors, doctors, and students then at Upsala,
attended his funeral. The king, in his speech to
the States in the same year, publicly lamented his
death, and ordered a medal to be struck in his
honour; and in 1798 a monument was erected to
him in the cathedral at Upsala, where he was
interred.

Such a life needs but little comment. It speaks
for itself to the youth leaving school and knowing
not what to do, to the young man struggling for
existence and position, to the middle-aged man in
his wealth and influence, and to the old man who
cares to leave a good name behind him.

ir

CHAPTER V.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.

The life of De Candolle— The Natural System.

There is a name which is very famiHar to young
and old botanists nowadays, and which is always
mentioned with feelings of great respect. It is
that of M. de Candolle, one of the founders of the
modern system of the classification of plants which
is used by everybody now in preference to the
celebrated artificial method taught by Linnaeus.

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was born at
Geneva, in February, 1778, and his father, M. Augus-
tine de Candolle, was descended from one of the
oldest families of Provence. One of his ancestors,
M. Pyramus de Candolle, became a Protestant, and
left France for the freer air of Switzerland, and
settled at Geneva in 1591. This gentleman became
a citizen of the town, a member of the legislature,
and took up the business of a printer. His presses
gave forth translations of the works of Tacitus and
Xenophon.

DE CANDOLLE. 99

They were stirring times, and this energetic man
once, in travelling through Grenoble into Switzer-
land, learned that the Duke of Savoy intended to
take Geneva by surprise, with his army. When the
attempt was made, Pyramus de Candolle fought as
a citizen of his adopted town. Subsequently he
went to Yverdun and established manufactories,
but the jealousy of the Bernese ruined him, and he
died broken-hearted. The family returned to
Geneva to live on small means, and the father of
De Candolle became a banker, and was much
employed by the State during troublous political
times.

An industrious, simple, loving, clever man was
the father, and he married Mademoiselle Bri^re.
De Candolle wrote of his mother : " She was an
educated woman, good, fond of fun, and clever ;
she was gifted with all the graces and virtues of
the mind, and she contributed by her amiable con-
versations and teachings to give me a taste for
science and literature. She had only one fault, and
it strangely enough influenced my character. She
was proud of her family, which she considered was
superior in station to that of my father, because
her mother was a distant relation of La . Fort, the
minister of Peter the Great of Russia. She took
every opportunity of making my father feel this
pretended superiority, so that when he became
forty-eight years of age, he thought that he would
make himself known to his relatives and take up

his nobility in Provence, and show his wife that his

lOO HEROES OF SCIENCE.

descent was better than hers. But my father took
every opportunity of teaching me that ability alone
was the real distinction amongst men, and that
nobility by itself was nothing, and was a matter of
accident. So that my mother's exaggerated family
notions, and my father's wise precepts, coming as
they did to me, during times of political change,
developed in me a sincere love for freedom, and a
contempt for all success except that which was
deserved." De CandoUe was born when his father
was in active office, and the earliest recollections of
the future naturalist were about his father's military
command, and the endeavours of this good citizen
to pacify the populace and the ruling powers, who
were always in opposition. The little fellow was
always ill, and lost much of the outdoor play of his
companions ; but there was compensation, for he
learned to read fairly soon, and at five years of age
he used to read and pretend to act plays ; and his
heart was in his studies, for when M. de Florian, an
author, came to see the family, the child told him
that he was going to write comedies, and had acted
them. At seven years of age he was far in advance,
and then came illness — scarlet fever, ear-ache, and
threatening brain disease. He used to say in after
years that he well remembered seeing everything
looking double. His recovery was very slow, and
he was taken to the country to a brisk air, and then
he began to be robust, and for fifty years after he
never spent a day in bed. But his father did not
send him to the public school ; he employed a tutor,

DE CANDOLLE. lOI

and the child learned nothing during three years.
Then came a little country life, and the friendship
of a man, a distinguished naturalist, Mr. Charles
Bonnet. His first start in science was homely
enough. His mother used to collect the herbs and
fruit out of the garden, and the boy used to arrange
what she gathered, keeping the different kinds
separate with an exactitude that made everybody
amazed. He said that he ought to arrange the
fruit according to their natures.

When eleven years of age, De Candolle was sent
to the college at Geneva, and was placed in the
fourth class, under a master of only moderate
powers of teaching. No great progress was made
in study, and the boy was rarely seen in the upper
part of the class. One day his father came to the
college to inquire how the boy was getting on, and
being a Government official was, of course, well re-
ceived. A little arrangement by the master, which
excited the contempt of the boy, placed him at the
head of the class, and so unfair did this seem that
the little fellow told his father that he had no
right to be there. However, he was removed to
the third class, and fortunately came under a better
master. Young De Candolle played hard and got
more healthy, and his studies were not onerous.
In fact, his mother did more for him than the school.
She taught him his native language, and gave him
a love for poetry. But this was almost crushed
out by the foolish method of teaching in the school.
If a boy wanted a holiday he had to write to the

102 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

rector of the college for it in Latin verse, and of
course children of twelve years of age could not
compose sufficiently well. So they copied, and the
result was that, year after year, the rector received
a collection of Latin letters which resembled those
of the year before, and this had gone on for several
generations. However, the boy wrote to the rector
in French verse, and in original verse. This was
considered something out of the common, and the
boy was praised, and his peculiar gift was fostered.
He became very intimate with a school-fellow
named Gaudy, who had the same tastes, and they
used to spend much of their time in turning Latin
prose and poetry into very bad French verse.
Soon after his old fondness for acting returned, and
he was successful in private theatricals. The boy
worked hard at this amusement, and learned many
of the great French tragedies and comedies, and
although the time was apparently wasted, yet De
CandoUe used to say that it did his memory good,
gave him a good style, and took away nervousness.
Then his father gave him a good private tutor, and
the boy entered the first class. There he found a
master who insisted on regular and profitable study,
besides Latin verse, and the result was that De
CandoUe began to distinguish himself and took
prizes. One prize which he gained, made him
think very deeply afterwards. It was an essay
relating to the existence of God. De CandoUe
wrote his essay in four hours, and it consisted of
from fifteen to twenty pages ; it included all he had

DE CANDOLLE. 1 93

learned of his catechism, what he remembered of
many sermons, and a host of quotations from the
Bible. But although the youth got the prize, and
was much applauded, he felt that he was a complete
stranger to the spirit of the truths he had written,
and that his heart had little to do with the sentences
which came from his pen. He learned religion
just as he learned Greek and Latin. In 1792
De Candolle left the college and began to study
literature, and,^ released from the troublesome dis-
cipline of the class, worked as if he were a man.
But things did not go on smoothly, for the political
troubles of that age soon affected Geneva. A
French army occupied Savoy and encamped near
Geneva. The Government prepared to defend the
town, and the fathers of families began to send
their wives and children into the interior of Switzer-
land. De Candolle was in despair when his father
told him and his brother to accompany their
mother ; he longed to fight for his country, but he
had to leave, and they went to Champagne, a small
village near Grandison, where the father, foreseeing
the trouble, had bought an estate. There the
summer and autumn were passed peaceably, and
in superintending the vines, the gathering of the
grapes, and managing the property with his mother.
Montesquieu, the French general, did not care about
crushing the little town of Geneva, and other
matters called him away. So the immediate danger
passed and the family returned to Geneva.

The youth returned to his studies amidst popular

104 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

discontent within the town. A revolution occurred,
and a provisional committee occupied the position
of the former Government. Strangely enough this
occurred whilst De Candolle's father was chief
magistrate, and the Government fell whilst he was
in office. Of course the man who had done so
much for the town was obliged to go into exile,
and he left for his little estate at Champagne,
leaving his son behind to pursue his studies. The
youth was left under the charge of his tutor, a
young married man, and much good work was
done, and in 1793 he rejoined his father. During
the next year M. Vaucher gave some lectures
on botany in the very modest little Botanical
Garden of Geneva. He was a clergyman and
Professor of Theology, but his amusements led him
to study plants, and especially those which live
in fresh water. His manner of teaching and the
subject, attracted De Candolle, and indeed so much
so that he felt that botany would be his special
study through life. What he learned from M.
Vaucher was about the principal organs of plants,
and he began to get books describing plants and
to endeavour to describe for himself. Singularly
enough, the methodical courses of study which De
Candolle had undergone assisted him ; for although
he obtained some botanical works of a very in-
different kind, which would have satisfied most
youths, he began to see their errors of method.
Knowing nothing of the labours of the great
botanists, the youth managed to see his way to the

DE CANDOLLE. I05

most reasonable plan of describing plants, and he
noticed the organs, one after the other, in the proper
manner. Teaching himself the rudiments of the
study of plants, and giving much time also to
literature, young De CandoUe remained much at
home, for Geneva was in a horrible state of
political revolution. Robespierre managed to send
emissaries there, and most of the better class of
citizens were imprisoned. De Candolle's father was
sentenced to death, but being away from the town
the sentence had no effect. This state of things
lasted for some time, until the good sense of the
majority annulled the sentence and restored order.
Many Genevese emigrated to America, and when
De Candolle returned to his studies he found the
town sad, and nearly all his old friends exiled or
gone in disgust. He had no amusements and there-
fore his studies were prosecuted with vigour, and
he began a course of natural philosophy. In 1796
he left his studies and spent the summer with his
father, reading good botanical works on the natural
philosophy of trees, the uses of leaves ; and, what
was of more importance, he wandered far and wide
over the Jura Mountains, collecting plants to
describe and study. He got Linnaeus's European
Botany, and soon began to learn many plants by
their proper names. But he used Linnaeus's book
as a simple dictionary, for he saw that although
the names of plants could be easily found out by
it, there were plants grouped together in it that
had no close resemblance in their most important

k

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parts. At this time his interest in his study was
intensified by a terrible instance which he wit-
nessed of the hidden powers of simple-looking
plants. He saw three little children die who had
eaten belladonna berries.

When eighteen years of age, De Candolle went
to Paris and lived in the same house as Dolomieu,
a very distinguished mineralogist, a wise and
moderate man whose simplicity charmed the young
man. This wise friend did not press his special
study on De Candolle, but advised him to follow
his fondness for botany, giving him, however, some
little insight into the nature of crystals and their
laws of form. De Candolle then learned that there
was a philosophy in stones, and he always stated in
after life that this instruction made him think
about the philosophy which linked plants together
in the scheme of creation. He had an instructive
conversation with a well-known botanist, about the
structure of the stems of palms and grapes — which
differ so much from those of the oak, plane, willow —
and of ordinary shrubs ; and this distinction of two
great groups of plants gave him an insight into
some of the grand distinctions between plants, and
which enabled hundreds of species or genera to be
grouped and separated. Unfortunately, at the
time of his arrival at Paris, the botanical courses at
the college were not being given, so he began to
attend the lectures on chemistry, physics, and
mineralogy. He often went to hear Cuvier, the
great comparative anatomist, whose great ability

BE CANDOLLE. 10/

and dignity of manner impressed everybody, and
he made the acquaintance of the still greater
Lamarck in a very curious manner. De Candolle
had seen M. de Lamarck at the French Academy
of Sciences, but he did not know anybody who
could introduce him to the great man. However,
he found out that Lamarck used to dine at the same
little restaurant which he patronized. So a little
plan was adopted to draw the celebrated zoologist
and botanist into conversation. De Candolle
asked his friend Pictet, who afterwards became a
professor at Geneva and a great man, to come by
chance as it were and sit beside him at the same
table as Lamarck, and they began a conversation
about botany. De Candolle especially stated how
useful he had found a book called the " Description
of the French Plants" in his studies. This was
overheard by Lamarck, who was the author of it,
and he joined in the conversation. Lamarck asked
the young man to come and see him, and a friend-
ship commenced ; and although they did not have
at that time much to say to one another about
botany, still the distinguished French naturalist
gave good advice, and, when De Candolle left Paris,
presented him with a letter and a book to give to
M. Senebier, of Geneva, whose friendship probably
decided the future career of the rising young
botanist. Certainly the acquaintance of Lamarck
stimulated De Candolle to study the physiology
of plants — how they grow, breathe, how the sap
circulates, how the colours are produced, and how

I08 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

the young seeds are formed. The happy circum-
stances which surrounded the young man at Paris
enabled him to see the great comedies of the day
and to admire the splendid acting at the theatres.
But he was a philosopher then, and he could not
but be struck with the furious gaiety of society
and the great frivolity of the day, and with that
careless method of living and thinking which fol-
lowed as a kind of revulsion on the awful scenes
of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror. In the
spring of 1797, De Candolle returned to Geneva.
There he studied the physiology of plants with
M. Sdnebier, going to his father's house in the
holidays, which were spent in botanical excur-
sions. In one of these, on the Jura Mountains, De
Candolle discovered a new fungus of a beautiful
red colour, and his adventure in obtaining the
specimen was very characteristic of the man. On
the sides of those hills are many very precipitous
trough-like paths, down which the wood-cutters
pass the fir trees they cut high up on the moun-
tains, to the valleys. They are rugged at the sides,
and have really been worn out of the hills by
running water and the rushing downwards of the
trees. Active people can slide down these "couloirs"
by sitting on a stick placed between one's legs,
and down went young De Candolle in that fashion.
As he rushed along, he saw a beautiful red plant
on a branch of a tree overhanging the couloir, and
as he slid down he managed to cut the branch and
obtain his prize — his first new plant to describe.

DE CANDOLLE. ICQ

But it was done at the expense of his clothes,
which got torn off from him in many parts, by the
rocks, so that he had to slink home to avoid being
seen. Working hard at botany, the young en-
thusiast had very agreeable hours of relaxation.
He was in the midst of a charming homely society;
and there is no doubt that his purity of character
and thorough honesty of disposition were fostered
and intensified, by his having the friendship of
several young married and single women of good
education and position. They made him a polished
gentleman, and he used to say that that was the
happy time of his life; he had no cares or anxieties,
everything smiled on him, yet he was conscious
that it must end, and that he must prepare for
work and the struggle of life.

Politics were always the trouble of the De
Candolle family, and they settled the future career
of the young botanist. Geneva was about to
become a portion of the French Republic, the
father of De Candolle lost one-half of his fortune,
and the young man went to Paris to learn how to
earn his bread after preliminary study. He had a
sad parting from the father who had been so good
to him, and who loved him so well, and arrived
at Paris, being received by an uncle, in March,
1798. After a few days of quietude, which he
spent in calling on his former friends, he deter-
mined to go into lodgings near the Jardin des
Plantes, and to work, leaving pleasure behind him,
and to be sought for when he could afford it. He

no HEROES OF SCIENCE.

began to study medicine, and led the odd life of
a medical student, attended to by old crones in
their second childhood, and witnessing all the sad
sights of the hospitals. Whenever he could, he
made his way to the Botanical Garden, and yet he
did not attend the lectures on botany. He found
them not consistent with what he knew. But he
was ever studying, describing, and observing plants,
and, knowing nobody at the gardens, sought out
Lamarck, who offered him some articles in his
Encyclopaedia to write. The articles were written,
and mistakes were naturally made, and in after
years they were readily acknowledged and set
right. But the work did not advance the young
botanist in his studies, although it confirmed him in
the necessity of examining all the parts of a plant
in classifying it, and in paying especial attention
to those organs which are the most important to
the life and reproduction of the kind. Leaving
his lodgings to board with a friend, De Candolle
was robbed, as was usual in those days, by his
housekeepers ; but he got into a worse scrape by
being inveigled into a gambling-house, where he
lost nearly all the money he had earned. It cured
him of that folly. At work he began to make
experiments on the action of different gases on the
roots of plants, and obtained some curious results ;
and M. Desfontaines, the Professor of Botany, gave
him hints about the correct method of describing
plants, so as to enable him to write the letterpress
to the plates of a work on those succulent plants

DE CANDOLLE. Ill

called Crassulacese, of which the houseleek and
stonecrops are familiar examples. Medicine was
quite given up ; and, in fact, it was hateful to De
Candolle, who used to say, " If I make a mistake
in naming a plant, I can set it right, but if I had
made mistakes as a medical man, who knows how
many dear little children I might not have killed?"
He became a friend of the Delessert family, and
met at their house all those rising naturalists who
were forming the great French school, and this
society was of great importance to him. Botanical
excursions to Fontainebleau were made by him,
with Brongniart, Cuvier, and Dumeril, all great
men in their day, and then he went botanizing
into Normandy, and nearly got drowned collecting
seaweeds. Returning to Paris, he was fortunate
enough to be again kindly looked after by some
good families, and he became attached to Mdlle.
Fanny Torras, one of a bright circle of ladies who
liked the brilliant conversation and good manners
of the rising young man. Going to Holland for
a trip, De Candolle was struck with the curious
vegetation of the hills or dunes of sand near the
coast, and this appears to have attracted his
attention to the geographical distribution of plants.
Nevertheless, and in spite of all those attractions,
he studied human anatomy and zoology. In
course of time he went home to Champagne, and
his future marriage was agreed upon. On his
return to Paris, he was received as the future
husband of Mdlle. Torras.

112 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

He studied the "sleep of plants," the classifi-
cation of the Vetches,[was presented at the Institute,
and elected a member of the Soci^t6 Philomathique,
where he met and became the associate of his old
botanical companions at Fontainebleau.

There is no doubt that a singular political position
which was thrust upon this young man of twenty-
two years of age, decided his future career, for it
brought him under the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte,
the First Consul of France. Geneva nominated him
as a "notable" to whom the consul might apply
for information about the requirements of the
town. De Candolle wrote in his memoirs : " I was
not much of a partisan. Born a republican, a
friend of peace, I saw with anxiety Napoleon's
evident love of war and desire for monarchy, but I
was obliged to look favourably on him, for he had
destroyed anarchy, and possessed great abilities."
Napoleon and the young man had two interviews,
one a peaceable one, which did good to the town
of Geneva, and a second and stormy one, during
which the simple student of the truth stood up, like
a man, against the angry despot, and quailed not
beneath that eye which most men feared. He was
not forgotten, however, and after a while he was
nominated on a commission to investigate the
teaching given in the schools of Paris, under the
charge of laymen. This commission was necessary,
for the Roman Catholic authorities were anxious
to put down lay teaching. De Candolle, a firm
Protestant, took great care in making his report,

tJE CANDOLLE. ITJ

and he decided that although there was much to be
desired, still the lay schools were doing their duty.

Pursuing his studies, De Candolle began to form
an herbarium, and his time was divided between
science and philanthropy — for he was a visitor at
the hospitals and prisons of Paris — and his Fanny,
whom he married in 1802. Immediately after-
wards he began to write his description of the
plants of France, and Cuvier asked him to lecture
for him during a term. The subject chosen was
the physiology of plants ; it was well managed,
and it tempted De Candolle to head his new book
with some chapters on it. Grief came in due time ;
De Candolle and his wife lost their firstborn, a
pretty little girl, and a long absence from Paris
was necessary. On their return, De Candolle
recommenced his work on his book, and after its
completion he began a series of excursions in
different parts of France, studying the botany and
geology. After a while a son was born, and De
Candolle was offered the professorship of Botany
at Montpellier.

He visited the city to see how he liked it, and
he took this opportunity, also, to go to the
Pyrenees for a botanical trip, collecting at the time
many interesting plants. A difficulty existed about
the acceptance of the position, for there was
much teaching required, and there would not be
much time for these excursions about France,
which were absolutely necessary for the knowledge
of the different local assemblages of plants or

I. I

1 14 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

floras. De Candolle had a salary of about £i6o
a year, which enabled him to start from Paris and
to botanize. If he went to Montpellier, all his
original work might cease, and he could not earn
this money and teach at the same time. So, loving
real work, he determined not to accept the position.
A great endeavour was being made, however, to
restore the teaching of natural history at Mont-
pellier, and the friends of the young man called on
the then Minister of the Interior, M. Cretet, and
urged him to see the rising botanist. At the
interview Mr. Cretet, who had no botanical
tastes, was wonderfully amused at a man's
giving up a good place for the sake of running
about France picking up plants, and said, in
a good-humoured manner, " Now, young man,
if you don't take both the situations you shan't
have either." The professorship at Montpellier
was accepted, and the necessary journeys were to
be allowed. This M. Cretet seems to have been a
man of great sense, and quite upset M. de Laplace,
the great mathematician, about De Candolle.
Laplace wanted to pay a compliment to the
minister, and also to bring the young botanist
before his notice, so he said, " Sir, you have done
us a doubtful service in sending M. de Candolle to
Montpellier, for we expected soon to have him as
a member of the Institute." M. Cretet turned on
him with an angry air and said, " Your institute !
Do you know what I should like to do with your
institute?" "What?" said Laplace, rather as-

DE CANDOLLE. II5

tonished at the tone of voice. " I should like to
fire a cannon well into the middle of it" M. de
Laplace seemed as if he would sink. " Yes," con-
tinued the minister, " I would fire a cannon at you
all, and disperse you all over France. It is fright-
ful to concentrate all the lights of the age in Paris,
and to leave the departments in ignorance and
idleness ! I have sent M. de CandoUe to Mont-
pellier to stimulate others to activity." Consider-
ing that the members of the Institute of France
have always considered themselves the very cream
of the cream of science, this was very shocking.

The new professor started with his wife, little
boy, his library and herbarium, and with many a
regret at leaving such friends as those who enlight-
ened Paris as anatomists and botanists. It was a
great position for a man of thirty years of age,
however, and it gave him sufficient to live upon; and
this was welcome, for hitherto he had been poor.

When he was settled in his new establishment
his father, then seventy-two years of age, came to
see him, and, after a short sojourn, took his leave,
accompanied by his daughter-in-law and grandson.
Whilst they all went to Geneva, De Candolle pre-
pared for and went on an excursion into Italy.
During the visit to Italy, in 1808, politics came in
the way of botany, and nothing was heard of De
Candolle for a month, his letters having gone
astray; but he turned up at Geneva, well, and in
good spirits, for he heard that he had a chance of
being made a member of the Institute. But he

Il6 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

found that even great scientific men have their little
foibles and favourites, and he did not get elected.
In fact, he never was elected a member, although
he was the most distinguished botanist of the age.
Years afterwards, when he was in Geneva, he was
made one of the eight foreign members, and that
has always been considered a great honour.
Nevertheless, politics, social position, and agree-
ment with the authorities of the day, on all subjects,
are of very considerable moment in these elections.

The return to Montpellier was sad, but the fine
sunshine of the south, and cheerful society, soon
made De Candolle forget his disappointment.
After a botanical trip in Savoy, De Candolle wrote
an important volume on geographical botany and
agriculture. The first of these subjects infers a
thorbugh knowledge of the names and kinds of
plants, and it is of great importance in associating
certain plants with soils, rocks, and climates.

By November, 1811, De Candolle had nearly
completed his botanical tours, and he then con-
sidered that he was settled at Montpellier for a
long time, and that his work would be more that
of a teacher than investigator. He found that
travelling and collecting had enlarged his mind,
and he never regretted the six years of wandering
about. About this time the young professor com-
menced a great work on the statistics of Frencn
vegetation. It did not deal with descriptions of
species, or of the special localities where they could
be found ; but, first, with the general distribution of

DE CANDOLLE. 11/

wild plants in France, and then with the relation of
the plants of France to the different wants of man-
kind. This last part was eminently practical, and it
dealt with food plants, medicinal plants, dye plants,
and those which are used for clothing. It was a pro-
digious attempt, and it never came to a conclusion;
only fragments of it were in his possession fourteen
years afterwards, and he attributed much of the
difficulty thrown in his way, to the alterations
which occurred in the boundaries of France after
the fall of Napoleon. Moreover, he had to com-
plete his description of the plants of France, and
that was not done until 1815.

De CandoUe was always fond of society, and,
after his labours of the day, was glad to go into or
receive company. Being a Protestant, and a man
of mark in his native town, he was well received
by most of the families of Montpellier, and his wife
also. Society consisted of good Protestant families
of old, so-called nobles, and some who thought
themselves nobles. It was split up like the society
of most small towns, into cliques, but De Candolle
escaped, for a long time, any discomforts or social
antagonisms. They came at last, however.

De Candolle, like many active-minded men, was
not popular with the officials who had " places " in
their gift. He was intrigued against, and lost the
rectorship of the University, but he had the
pleasure of exposing the intrigue in 181 3.

Napoleon had fought his last fight, and had gone
to Elba, and the Bourbons had been restored.

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Il8 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Disgusted with the military spirit of the Empire,
De Candolle rejoiced at the restoration of the
Bourbons, and even became a volunteer to keep
the town in order. He began to change his mind
soon, however, for the Count d'Artois, one of the
royal family, received the professor with great
haughtiness, and, by way of making amends, paid
particular attention to a rascal of the first water
who had returned from the galleys, where he had
been sent for stealing, and not for devotion to the
Bourbons, as he told the duke. Going to Geneva
on a visit, to place his eldest son at school, De
Candolle found the city just being received into
the Confederation of the Swiss Republic. He
returned to Montpellier, which was full of rejoicing
at Napoleon's exile, but shortly afterwards all was
disorder during the hundred days in which Napoleon
was, for the last time, ruler of France. Beyond
the reach of direct politics, the professors of Mont-
pellier had their little evenings, and even got up
private theatricals. In the midst of a scene in
one of these came the news that Napoleon had
landed at Cannes, and was on his way to Paris.
That was the last quiet hour that De Candolle had in
the town. An unfriendly man, who was a royalist,
began to set people against the professor, who re-
sented their interference. He began to limit his
circle of friends, left literature alone more and
more, and plunged more deeply into science. He
determined to leave Montpellier and its littlenesses.
His principal care was to enlarge and utilize the

DE CANDOLLE. II9

botanic garden of the place, and then he devoted
much time to teaching, and with great success.
Civil war was imminent, and the defeat at Waterloo
produced outbreaks at Montpellier. De Candolle
had been elected Rector of the University during
the Hundred Days, and was ordered to give up the
title. This he did, and prepared to leave the place.
He had sent his family to Geneva, and in travelling
himself to join them, by way of Nimes, he saw
traces of the horrible treatment the Protestants had
received. Subsequently the family went to Paris,
passing through the towns occupied by the allied
troops. Having time, De Candolle visited England,
and became the guest of Dr. Marcet, and was intro-
duced to the best of the scientific world. He met
and enjoyed the reticent Robert Brown, and went
to a sitting of the Royal Society, which he said
was dull. He was introduced to Hooker and Sir
James Smith, the proprietor of the Herbarium of
Linnaeus, which he very properly said was the basis
of botanical nomenclature. In 18 16 De Candolle
found himself settling down in his native town of
Geneva, where he was well received, and became
Professor of Natural History, and taught students of
both sexes, and began to establish a botanic garden
of some importance. There he was obliged to go
into local politics, and for years was a representative
of the town, doing good work for the poor, for
liberty by receiving and protecting political fugitives
and by insisting on the freedom of the press, which
was considerably hated in France under the re-

120 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Stored Bourbons. Nevertheless, year after year he
taught well, and most of the great botanists of
later years were either his students or his visitors
and friends. As age crept on, De Candolle con-
tinued his researches, and got through the descrip-
tion and classification of a considerable number of
known plants. These were published in a book
which will always be his masterpiece. Honours
crowded on him, the gifts of learned societies of all
nations, and he visited most of the great cities of
the Continent. In 1832 he published the second
part of his work. He had great happiness with
his wife, and his parents lived to great ages, content
with the prosperity of their son, who was ever good
and loving to them, and got his reward. He had a
little estate, out of Geneva, at Saint Seine, and en-
joyed it much ; but, as years rolled on, the death
of a son there, affected his tender heart, and he sold
the place and bought another, called La Barriere,
near Geneva. His eldest son, Alphonse, followed
well in the father's steps. Finally, when old age
troubled De Candolle, he gave up his professorship.
Ill health succeeded, but the man worked on at
his great book, and even entered the political arena
once again at a time of emergency. The winter of
1840-41 was one of illness, and he could no longer
work. His friends were dying off, month after
month, and when death came to him, he was con-
tent. He had been a good son, an excellent father,
a loving friend, a true patriot, deserving everything
that elevated mankind ; and it is admitted by all

DE CANDOLLE. 121

botanists that he consolidated the science, and gave
it a definite natural classification.

De CandoUe early in life grasped the truth that
plants grow, reproduce, and arrive at maturity, not
by accident, but according to natural law, and he
soon saw that some parts of plants were of more
importance to their well-being and multiplication
than others. He was thus a follower of Ray, and
he became impressed with the belief that in arrang-
ing plants, the resemblances of the most important
parts and organs, should be considered before those
of the less important. This manner of proceeding
he called the natural method. It was founded upon
the knowledge of the anatomy of the plants and
upon their physiology, and the method required care
and research. The artificial method of Linnaeus
enabled botanists to distinguish plants readily, by
examining the most readily examined, and often
unimportant, parts of the plant's flower. It was not
a scientific plan, but a ready method. It did not
bring one plant into relation with another, showing
the common method of growth and reproduction,
but simply enabled one plant to be separated and
distinguished from another, and this is the least
part of botany.

The works of Whewell on the inductive sciences,
the article on botany in the " Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica," Pulteney's "Life of Linnaeus," and that
written by Miss Brightwell, of Norwich, and De
Candolle's "M^moires et souvenirs ecrits par lui
meme" have been freely and largely quoted in
these chapters,

CHAPTER VI.

HEROES OF ZOOLOGY.

The nature of the science of zoology — Great zoologists usually
botanists also — Aristoteles as a zoologist — Plinius — The long
age of no progress— The life of Conrad Gesner — The zoology
of Ray and Willughby — Swammerdam — Reaumur — The
zoology of Linnaeus.

Zoology does for animals what botany does for
plants. It is the science which treats of the
resemblances and differences of animals, their
shapes, and habits, and which explains their
position on the earth in different countries, and
classifies them. It is inseparably linked on to
the study of comparative anatomy and to phy-
siology which treats of the internal structures
and the influence which the outside world has
upon the living thing. Like botany, the science
arose in a simple manner, and men first of all
learned to distinguish one animal from another,
giving them names. Then their habits were
noticed, and some attempt was made to arrange
animals by their greater or less resemblances of

ARISTOTELES. 1^5

oysters. He examined, one by one, all the species
he could procure, and then classed together as a
subordinate generic group all those, which resem-
bling each other in the more important parts of
their structure, differed only in size or colour, or in
other points of little importance.

Aristoteles founded the natural history of his
age, and no one came near to him. He left nobody
behind to follow his work.

In after years, Plinius wrote on beasts, fishes,
birds, and insects, and on human and compara-
tive anatomy, but he made no great advance on
Aristoteles. Then there occurred as great a gap in
the study of zoology as happened in botany, and
many hundreds of years elapsed before progress
was made.

Conrad Gesner, a Swiss, made the first great
step in zoology after the ancients, and his life was
a most remarkable one. A writer says of him, that
he was a shining example of the truth of the re-
mark, that those who have most to do, and are
willing to work, find the most time. He was a
great scholar, and a profound naturalist. He began
life in extreme poverty, soon became an orphan,
laboured whilst ill, and sacrificed himself for the
sake of others. A son of a poor skinner and worker
of hides, he was born in 15 16, at Zurich, and had to
suffer pinching poverty, with his numerous brothers
and sisters. An uncle was kind to the boy,
and began to educate him, but death stepped in
and he lost his kind relation. When only thirteen

126 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

years of age, Gesner was cast upon the world, his
father having died fighting in the battle of Zug.
The lad was seriously ill and dropsical, and his
sole fortune was a little knowledge of classics, which
he had picked up. Probably one of the professors
at Zurich, Ammian by name, and who had in-
structed him, gave him introductions, for we find
the lad at Strasbourg when fifteen years of age.
His thoughts were to go into the Lutheran Church,
and it is certain that the Lutheran Wolfgang Fa-
bricius Capito gave him some employment, and
enabled him to begin the study of Hebrew. Re-
turning again to Zurich, the university there gave
him a little pension, to enable him to travel, and
he went into France to Bourges. There he taught
at a school, and occupied his spare time in learning
Greek and Latin. Then he went to Strasbourg
again, hoping for employment, and finding none,
was asked to return to Zurich, and to teach in the
university. At the age of twenty he married, and,
of course, much against the wishes of his friends,
who do not appear to have done anything for him,
except to have given gratuitous advice. Although
the Church was to be the career of Gesner, he took
much interest in the healing art, and resigning
his position at Zurich, he went, having a small
pension, to Basle as a medical student. Anxious
to know the wisdom of the Greek physicians, he
paid unusual attention to that language, and
edited an edition of a dictionary of it. This study
brought strange results, for he was offered a pro-

GESNER. I2f

fessorship of Greek at Lausanne, and he accepted
the position. He was very young, and yet learned
men found his friendship valuable. Going, subse-
quently, to Montpellier, he became acquainted
with a naturalist named Rondelet, and he gradu-
ally began to earn enough money to be inde-
pendent. So he returned to Basle, and in 1541,
being twenty-five years old, took his degree in
medicine. He settled in practice at Zurich, and
occupied his spare time in studying zoology and
botany, and soon became wealthy. Occasionally
he travelled, and during one of these trips he be-
came acquainted with the leading men at Venice
and Augsburg, and at their instance began a great
work, a kind of universal catalogue of Greek,
Hebrew, and Latin works. All this time he was
slowly and surely studying animals and plants, and
in 1 55 1 the first part of his " History of Animals "
appeared, to be followed by others in 1554, 1555,
and 1556. The volumes contained descriptions of
viviparous quadrupeds, that is to say, four-footed
beasts, whose young are born in active movement ;
of oviparous quadrupeds, or those which lay eggs ;
of birds and of fishes, and other aquatic animals.
He wrote also upon insects. All agree that this
book is a miracle of industry, having for its object
no less than a general history of animated nature.
It contains a careful criticism of the works of
previous authors, and, besides much valuable and
solid knowledge on zoology, many interesting
remarks on the habits and medicinal uses of

1 28 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

animals. He followed the method of Aristoteles, and
the notion of the genus was, of course, not satis-
factorily established ; but the book was the source
of much of modern zoology, from which succeeding
writers drew largely.

Gesner's botanical works were as great as those
relating to animals, and he designed and painted
fifteen hundred figures of plants, which were of
great use to his successors. As if he had not
enough to do, he translated the Greek works of
Aelian, on animals, in 1556. Scientific and in-
dustrious, he had much to contend with, and was
short-sighted. He was the first person who used
concaved glasses to remedy this defect in his
sight. As years rolled on, Gesner was much
liked and honoured in his native town ; he was
very amiable, a great peacemaker, and a liberal
citizen. He established a botanic garden, and gave
employment to artists. Whilst in the full vigour
of life, and in active practice as a physician, the
plague attacked Zurich, and Gesner successfully
combated the contagious disorder in many cases.
He exposed himself without fear, after the fashion
of most medical men, and unfortunately caught the
disease. When the worst symptoms came, he knew
his hour was at hand, and asked to be carried into
his library and museum, where all the treasures
he had collected and described, to the delight of
his students and friends, were deposited. There he
breathed his last, in the arms of his affectionate
wife, for whose love contagion had no terrors. He

GESNER. 129

died with the calmness of a Christian philosopher,
on the fifth day of his attack, at the early age of
forty-nine. His remains rest, much honoured, in
the cloister of the Greek church at Zurich. Not
only did Gesner consolidate the knowledge of the
animal and vegetable kingdom of his day, but he
also influenced other authors to do good work, and
to avoid unkind criticism. His calm, candid, and
equable temper enabled him to soothe the angry
feelings of others, under their real and imaginary
wrongs. He laid aside his own labour to assist
others, and he devoted much time to the super-
vision and publication of a work which was left
incomplete, by a deceased friend, so as to provide
for the family.

Gesner's life is a very good proof that where
there is a will there is a way, and that poverty
does not impede the path of a thoroughly indus-
trious and earnest man. The poor skinner's son's
name is respected at the present day, and will be
so, as long as science lasts.

The interesting life of Ray has already been
given amongst those of the heroes of botany ; he
was, however, a zoologist of the first class, and his
devotion to that part of natural history was part
of his great friendship for Mr. Willughby. This
promising young man studied under Ray, at Cam-
bridge, and whilst the master took plants under
his care and study, the pupil began to work at
animals. They made a tour together, visiting
France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Low Coun-

I. K

130 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

tries. Ichthyology, or the study of fishes, and
ornithology, or the study of birds, occupied the
attention of Willughby. Having collected a vast
number of specimens and observations, they re-
turned to England, and Willughby immediately
commenced working with a view to the publication
of a great work on the animal kingdom. He even
contemplated a visit to America ; but health failed,
and he died in the prime of life, on July 3rd, 1672.
The education of his two infant sons was confided
to Mr. Ray, who was one of his executors. Wil-
lughby thought his works too imperfect for publi-
cation, but Ray felt otherwise, and urged it upon
him for three reasons : first, the glory of God ;
secondly, the assistance of others in the same
studies ; thirdly, the honour of his native land.
Upon these grounds he gave his consent, and Ray
became their editor. A book on birds, " The Orni-
thologia," was the result, and it contains a large
amount of original observation, and is a full and
exact description of the habits and maladies of
birds, and the best means of domesticating them.
Excellent anatomical descriptions are added. Sub-
sequently, a book on the fishes of the Mediterranean
appeared.

The merits of Willughby as a natural historian
still continue to be recognized. He was a most
accomplished zoologist, and he gave Ray and
Linnffius the method of classification of animals
which is usually associated with their names. Ray
acknowledged this, and he says that he found

RAY AND WILLUGHBY. I3t

among his friend's manuscripts the histories of
beasts and insects, no less than of birds and fishes,
" digested with a method of his own." He was not
a simple wealthy and intelligent amateur, for he
was master to one of the greatest naturalists.
Ray, in editing Willughby's " Book on Birds," gives
a most touching preface to the memory of his
friend. He says, "He was from childhood addicted
to study, and ever since he came to the use of
reason, so great a husbander of his time, as not
willingly to lose, or let slip unoccupied, the least
fragment of it ; detesting no vice more than idle-
ness, which he looked on as the parent and source
of all others. Of his skill in natural philosophy,
chiefly the history of animals, I shall say no more at
present, but that it hath not yet been my hap to
meet with any man, whether in England or beyond
seas, of so general and comprehensive knowledge
therein."

A very different career, but one which has had
a greater general influence on natural history, was
that of John Swammerdam, who was born at
Amsterdam, in 1637, his father being an apothe-
cary. His grandfather, Jacob Dirkz, was born in
the village of Swammerdam, near Leyden, and his
father, a well-to-do apothecary, lived there and
took his name from the village. He married
Berendina Corvera and settled at Amsterdam.
The family lived in comfort, and the little one
was destined, like many other naturalists, to the
Church. His education consisted of sound Latin

13:^ iie:roes of science.

and Greek, and when he became old enough,
he began to feel that there were responsibilities
about his future office as a clergyman, which he
did not think he could fulfil. Holland at that
time was in a religious ferment, and sects of all
kinds existed, religion being more talked about
than practised. The lad, as he grew up, desired to
follow in his father's footsteps, and to learn the
healing art ; but his genius led him to the study of
nature. Before he was fifteen years of age, he
began to make collections of natural history
objects, and whenever he could get away from
home, and spare time from his medical studies,
he pursued his favourite employment, searching
the woods and fields, the sand-hills and muddy
shores, the lakes, rivers, and canals, for insects,
worms, and molluscs, until he acquired, even as a
youth, a more extensive knowledge of the lower
animals than all the naturalists who had preceded
him. In 1661 he went to Leyden and studied
surgery and anatomy. In this last he excelled,
and became celebrated for his methods of pre-
serving dissections. Then he went to Saumur, in
France, and to Paris, where he gained the friend-
ship of Thevenot the traveller, who was his patron
subsequently, and assisted him when in Am-
sterdam in after years, by obtaining permission for
him to dissect human bodies. His fellow-pupil
was Nicholas Steno, of whom more will be said
under the title of " Heroes of Geology." On his
return to Leyden, Swammerdam discovered the

SWAMMERDAM. 133

method of injecting arteries with coloured wax, and
of keeping the internal organs in a dry condition
for purposes of study, and investigated the nature
of the lymphatics. He graduated soon after, and
after receiving his diploma, returned to his old
love, nature, and occupied nearly all his time in the
anatomy and physiology of insects.

Swammerdam worked so incessantly, that he got
into bad health, and was obliged to relinquish
the medical profession for a time. He followed
up his researches into the minute construction of
insects, and really never ceased them until death.
The Grand Duke of Tuscany visited Amsterdam
at this time, and examined Swammerdam's col-
lections. Greatly impressed with their value, and
with the splendid dissections, he offered a home
to the young naturalist in his palace, and twelve
thousand florins for the collection. Swammerdam,
however, did not care to wear a collar ; and loving
freedom of thought, which he did not think he
would have in Italy, declined the offer. He knew
that he would be expected to change his religious
tenets, and said that he would not sell his soul for
money. He published a " General History of
Insects," in 1669, and soon afterwards broke down,
entirely, in health, so that he had to go into the
country to rest and do nothing. But this was im-
possible; and he began to study bees, and their
natural history. Probably it was this constant
weak health, and the solitude necessary for the
peculiar nature of his work and observations, that

134 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

had a very remarkable influence on the mind and
emotions of this great investigator. Always
religious, he longed more and more for communion
with his Maker and the author of all the wonders
he .was constantly studying. When in better health
he was happy in his thoughts, and considered that
it was his duty to study nature ; but when ill,
from the effects of overwork, he began to think
that his labours were leading him astray, and that
to seek the good opinion of his fellow-creatures
and to become famous, was a sin. Sometimes he
gave up science, to begin again wath fresh zeal, and
then he would neglect it, giving up his whole time
to religion. Unfortunately he was unreasonable
in his method of working. Boerhaave, the great
physician, thus wrote of Swammerdam : " He
laboured so assiduously at this work as to destroy
his constitution, nor did he ever recover a shadow
of his former strength. The labour, in fact, was
beyond the power of ordinary men — all day he
was employed in examining objects, and at night
described and delineated what he had seen by day.
At six in the morning, in summer, he began to
receive sufficient light from the sun to enable him
to trace the objects of his examination. He con-
tinued dissecting until twelve, with his hat removed
lest it should impede the light, and in the full
blaze of the sun, the heat of which caused his head
to be constantly covered with profuse perspiration.
His eyes being constantly exposed to a strong
light, the effect of which was increased by the

SWAMMERDAM. 1 35

microscope, they were so affected by it, that after
midday he could no longer trace the minute bodies
which he examined, although he had then as bright
a light as in the forenooa"

Swammerdam investigated the nature of the
changes of outside form and internal structure
which accompany insect life. Some of his draw-
ings of the escape of the ephemera fly from its
sheath of delicate skin on the surface of the water,
and out of the wingless or nymph condition, are
very beautiful. But his accuracy regarding the
minute internal changes of the tissues and organs
in the larva, pupa, and perfect insect is being more
and more acknowledged. He taught that these
changes were not sudden, but that a continuous
growth of organs and tissues culminated at certain
times of the life of the insect. The larva, or cater-
pillar, admirably adapted for its course of life, was
a stage of the life cycle of a more perfect form, the
imago or flying insect. Swammerdam stated that
all the organs of the perfect insect— a butterfly,
for instance — were in a visible yet only slightly
developed condition in the caterpillar. And late
researches are leading to prove that he was right,
for the wings of the future fly are to be detected in
the body of the tiny crawling thing that escapes
from the egg,

Happy in this toil when he was well, for it was
all about what was entirely new and previously
unknown, he often laboured on, when he was ill,
with "sighs and tears." Naturally sensitive, pious,

136 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

and very amiable, he at one time quite gave up his
work under the influence of a remarkable woman,
Antoinette Bourignon. She was a wealthy, well-
educated person, extremely plain, and who believed
that a mission had been given her to preach
according to her own fancies, and not in accord-
ance with the general doctrines of the age. She
seems to have stimulated Swammerdam to lead a
purely religious life, and to give up his studies. It
was the age of sects and of intolerance; and
possibly the disagreeable reception which this
certainly very good woman met with, made the
man care more about her peculiar tenets. He
began, seriously, to try and sell his collections,
made catalogues of his possessions, and corre-
sponded with Antoinette. While various negotia-
tions were pending, Swammerdam published the
results of his ten years' labour and the " Anatomy
of the Day Fly," a great work, and his best. Then
he went on a journey into Denmark to use his in-
fluence with the king in order to get Antoinette a
home in that kingdom, the Lutherans of Holland
having ordered her to leave their country. He was
not successful ; and probably this affair made a
great commotion at home. On Swammerdam's
return, his father, enraged at him for his utter
carelessness about earning money and his want of
application to business, determined to allow him
only a small sum of money to live upon. He was
in utter despair, for this prevented his following his
wish to lead, for the future, a life of meditation and

SWAMMERDAM. 1 3/

religion. The father died soon afterwards, and a
lawsuit was commenced by the family to prevent
Swammerdam having his share of the property.
This trouble brought on illness, and severe ague
followed, and, although recovery took place, the
sensitive, able man sank soon afterwards. Swam-
merdam made an epoch in zoology by showing the
value of the microscope, and by his extreme ex-
actitude in descriptions, drawings, and dissections.
His contributions to human anatomy alone will
always render his name illustrious.

Although everybody must regret that Swammer-
dam had not good means, and that his work was
so sadly brought to a close by poverty and trouble,
yet it must be remembered that wealth is not a
great incentive to distinction in subjects that
require great self-denial, and which are not much
valued by what is called public opinion. The
temptations incident to, and the real duties of
wealth, are as great antagonists of successful
scientific research, as poverty. And certainly the
frivolity and vice of the wealthier classes of Europe,
during the earlier part of the eighteenth century,
were not likely to inspire any of their members
with a desire for natural science. But some very
remarkable instances occurred, in which the genius
and determination of some great men prevailed
over the intolerance and habits of the age, and
enabled them to become men of great mark in
zoology and other subjects.

The first to be noticed is Rene Antcine Ferchault

138 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

de Reaumur, who was born at Rochellc, in western
France, in 1683. Well born, and having wealthy
parents, he was well educated, and destined for the
law. He did not follow the propensities of the age,
but began to study the arts and manufactures of
France with great care, and to spend his spare time
in natural history researches. From what is known
of his career, it is very evident that he had learned
chemistry and mineralogy, and that his education
had been a most careful and liberal one. His for-
tune was considerable, and it not being necessary for
him to work for his bread, he determined to follow
the bent of his inclinations. When twenty years
of age, Reaumur went to Paris, and his first essay
was in the form of some geometrical work which
was read before the Academy of Sciences. At the
early age of twenty-four he was admitted a member
of that learned and somewhat emotional body, and
was a very constant contributor to its publications
for fifty years. At first his desire was to improve
the arts and manufactures of his native land, and in
171 1 he made experiments upon the manufacture
of ropes, and he showed that the strength of a cord
is less than the sum of the strength of the threads
of which it consists, whence it follows that the less
a rope is twisted after a certain point, the stronger
it is. In 171 5 he began to study the process of
colouring artificial pearls, and probably it was
during these researches that his attention was
attracted towards natural history. He found out
the nature of the substance which gives the pearly

ri!:aumur. 141

progressive development of the minute young to
the full-grown creature. Reaumur was sufficiently
wealthy to form a large collection of animals, and
a very able man, M. Brisson, was employed by
him as its curator, and was allowed to describe the
quadrupeds and birds. Reaumur did not care so
much about classifying insects, as describing their
habits and anatomy ; but his six great volumes are
still most valuable memorials of his conscientious
care. He says that the number of observations
necessary for a tolerably complete history of so many
minute animals is prodigious. When one reflects
on all that an accomplished botanist ought to
know, it is enough to frighten him. His memory
is loaded with the names of twelve or thirteen
thousand plants, and he is expected to recall, on
occasion, the image of any one of them. There is
perhaps not one of those plants but has insects
peculiar to itself; and some trees, such as the oak,
give sustenance to several hundred different
species. And after all, how many are there that
do not live on plants } How many species that
devour others ^ How many that live at the ex-
pense of other animals ? How many species are
there, some of which pass the greater part of their
time in water, while others pass it entirely there ?
The immensity of nature's works is nowhere more
apparent than in the prodigious multitudes of
these little animals. This being the case, he deems
it impossible for any one man to acquire a know-
ledge of all the insects of even a limited district ;

142 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

therefore, instead of burthening the memory with
the characteristic distinctions of these creatures, to
the neglect of matters of greater importance, he
recommends attention to particular genera, and
especially, to those which are of most frequent
occurrence, that a knowledge of their peculiarities,
food, and propagation, and the different forms they
assume, may be accurately obtained.

In the first two volumes, Reaumur treats of
caterpillars, their changes of form into the chrysalis,
and this into the butterfly; about their different
kinds and habits, and concerning the other insects
which attack them, and live within them, in their
early stage.

The third volume includes the description of the
habits of the clothes moths, and the plant-lice, or
aphides ; the fourth treats of gall insects and two-
winged flies ; the fifth contains the history of bees,
and the sixth of wasps and hornets. The natural
history of the grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles
was to have been written in a seventh volume, but
it was never completed. The published volumes
contain much very valuable information, and their
great merit consists in the wonderful care Reaumur
took, in investigating facts and in recording them
carefully and systematically. He especially studied
the instincts of insects, and thus brought their
nervous system into prominent notice, and also the
evident connection between the surrounding con-
ditions and the peculiar lives of animals.

Years rolled on and the worthy man became

r]£aumur. 143

old, but still persisted in his simplicity of life and
desire for study. He was so superior in intellect
to the class to which he belonged, that he lived free
from jealousy and intrigue. Probably few men
have led a happier life than Reaumur, and cer-
tainly his useful works will last as long as mankind.
At the age of seventy-four he met with an acci-
dent whilst riding, and died October i8th, 1757.
He had no personal vanity, and, being influenced
by the true scientific spirit, sought truth and not
personal distinction and reward.

Linnaeus, whose life has been given under the
title of a hero in botanical science, was almost as
great a zoologist as botanist and mineralogist. His
classification of animals produced as great a change
in the direction and possibility of studying zoology,
as that of plants did in the case of botany. It led
the way, through an artificial system, by which
animals could be readily known, to a natural system
which united animals not only by their common
general shape, but also by the nature, position, and
use of their internal organs. His system of naming
animals was equal to that of plants, and the
reasonable generic and the applicable specific
names, going together, stamped the animal with a
kind of individuality. Classification, description,
and proper naming were the important parts of
Linnaeus's zoology.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LIVES OF BUFFON, PENNANT, AND LAMARCK.

The popular writings of Buflbn, and his life — Pennant's life —
Lamarck and his life — The rise of popular natural history, and
of exact descriptions and philosophical zoology.

If natural history had never been studied in an
easy manner, and had not the results of those
studies been given to educated men desirous of
knowing something about animals in popular yet
correct works, very few men would have cared to
become zoologists. It is the good, easy, popular,
but not necessarily jocular book on natural history
that, as a rule, excites the attention of the young,
and stimulates the youth to obtain further know-
ledge. Such books were written at a very interesting
time of the world, and just when they were wanted ;
and the writer was a very remarkable man — a
man born to wealth and station, but who, like many
others, preferred hard work and the study of nature
to sloth and luxurious idleness, and even to the
profession of arms, so much in vogue in the early
part of the eighteenth century.

BUFFON. 145

George Louis Lcclerc do Buffoii was born on
September 7th, 1707, at Montbard, in Burgundy.
He came of good family, and his father was coun-
cillor of the Burgundian parliament. His mother,
Anne Christine Mazlin, appears to have possessed
considerable natural gifts. She was also of good
family, and was remarkable, in those days, for the
elevation of her mind and strength of character. She
was a better parent than the father who, although
he was looked upon as a wonder in his province, in
consequence of his wasteful living and devotion to
feasts, balls, and concerts, was really only a person
of average merit. The mother was tenderly loved
by her son, but the father gave him some trouble
in after years, on account of his follies. Neverthe-
less, it adds to the interest and good example of
Buffon's character to learn that he did not care to
follow the agreeable life of his father, but that he
broke away from it and took to wisdom, although
having great property, he always lived and behaved
like a nobleman of wealth and mental distinction.

Buffon was the oldest of five children, and the
rest were devoted by the parents to the priest-
hood, or to nunneries ; so it would appear that the
father not only followed the rule of the day, to
keep the property in the hands of the eldest son,
but to provide for the others in the cheapest pos-
sible manner. The young noble was in due course
sent to a school at Dijon kept by Jesuit fathers, the
best instructors in those days ; and report says that
the boy was fond of arithmetic and had a character

I. L

14^ HEROES OF SCIENCE.

for decision and perseverance. After a while Buflfon
was entered at the academy of Angers, it being
decided that the boy should follow his father as a
magistrate and public man. There his love of
study became evident, and his application was con-
siderable. One of his associates was a young
English nobleman. Lord Kingston, and they be-
came great friends, and probably this friendship
was caused and fostered by his lordship's German
tutor, Hinckman, who was a man of considerable
learning. When he was nineteen years of age the
three friends started for a tour in Italy. Returning
to Angers to resume his studies, Buffon became a
little wild, and got into a quarrel with a young
Englishman at play. Buffon wounded his an-
tagonist and had to leave the town. He went to
Paris, but not to waste time ; on the contrary, his
former love of figures, and his later studies in
mathematics, inspired him to translate Newton's
"Fluxions" into French, and also Hale's "Vegetable
Statics," which subsequently he presented to the
Academy of Sciences. Still keeping up his friend-
ship with Lord Kingston, Buffon visited Italy again ;
and there is no doubt that Hinckman instilled the
love of nature into the young man's mind. They
were all at Rome in 1732, when Buffon heard of the
death of his mother, who was greatly mourned by
him. He was then twenty-five years of age, and
became very wealthy, as he was his mother's heir.
Journeying in Switzerland he began to know other
English people of distinction. All these friend-

BUFFON. 147

ships led him at last to England, and he went to
Thoresby, the seat of Lord Kingston, and remained
in the country for some months.

Buffon had a very fine person, liked a little
" show," and the rather solemn and stilted manners
of the British nobility pleased him. It was this
stay in England, and his friendships, that gave
Buffon some of the manners of the aristocracy
of the day, so that Hume said of him that he
resembled a marshal of France more than a man
of letters. These habits, amongst which courtesy
and true gentility — that is to say, treating other
people as we would they should treat us in society — ■
were predominant, clung to Buffon ; and even
when at home, and at his very hard and incessant
labour in natural history, he kept up his state, and
was the great French noble as well as the humble
student of nature.

It is a curious fact, but one very readily ex-
plained, that Buffon, like nearly all the great
zoologists, began his scientific life as a botanist.
Plants are ever at hand, and their classification,
good or bad, is readily learned. One of his first
works, presented after receiving the honour of
election to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, was
on a question of the influence of barking trees ; and
others were on agriculture. He gave a proof that
he was acquainted with the human frame, for he
wrote on the causes of squinting.

Scientific men of nobility were rare in France in
those days, and Buffon was appointed keeper to

148 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

the Jardin du Roi and the Royal Museum. Anxious
to continue his studies about trees, he prevailed on
the king to let him experiment on a grand scale in
one of the royal forests. But this was only a
part of his work, for he commenced that great
book on natural history which was always after to
be associated with his name. It was not to be a
simple book on animals, but on the history of the
earth as well ; and, in fact, he intended it to be an
encyclopaedia of all natural knowledge except
mathematics and figures. It was a great concep-
tion and it was carried out year after year during
success, domestic happiness and trouble. The per-
severanee and patience of the man were wonderful ;
and fortunately he had the means of collecting
what was required, of buying books and of
having secretaries to do the very troublesome and
mechanical part of writing. He was short-sighted
and wrote badly. It was not vanity, nor the desire
of being great, that made Bufifon work ; certainly
it was not amusement. But he was happy in his
work, and he stated that genius is a gift which
comes not from man ; and the great man is an in-
strument in the Divine hand ; he has a mission
which may be for light or to ruin, and neither the
environment of pleasure or glory or the troubles of
fortune, ill-health, or misery should deter him from
his ends. Genius, Bufifon also termed, a very great
aptitude for patience.

Daubenton assisted Bufifon in his first three
volumes of natural history, and they came out in

BUFFON. 149

1749, and the other volumes came out year by year
until his death.

Buffon lived carefully, and kept up the curious
state of the French gentlemen of his day in his
house. After he was dressed, he dictated letters
and regulated his domestic affairs, and at six o'clock
he retired to his studies in a building called the
tower of St. Louis. This was in the garden, and
far away from the house, and the only furniture in
it was a wooden writing-table, with its cupboards
and drawers, and an armchair. Neither pictures nor
books relieved the naked appearance of the apart-
ment, or distracted the thoughts of the learned
professor. The entrance was by green folding
doors, the walls were painted green, and the in-
terior had the appearance of a chapel in conse-
quence of the elevation of the roof. Within this
garden was another building, where Buffon resided
during the greater part of the year, as it was
warmer than the other place, and here he composed
most of his works. It was a small square building,
situated on the side of a terrace, and was orna-
mented with drawings of birds and beasts. At
nine o'clock Buffon usually took an hour's rest and
his breakfast, which consisted of a piece of bread
and two glasses of wine. When he had written for
two hours after breakfast, he returned to the house.
At dinner he spent a considerable time in conversa-
tion, and relaxed his mind from work entirely, en-
joying the wit and gaiety of his friends. He usually
slept for an hour after dinner in his room and took

150 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

a solitary walk, and during the rest of the evening
he either conversed with his family or his guests,
or sat at his desk examining papers which were
submitted to his judgment. At nine o'clock he
went to bed. In 1762, when fifty- five years of
age, Buffon married a lady who was in every way
suited to him, and who, moreover, took a deep
interest in his studies. He was greatly attached to
her, and her companionship made the country life
all the more pleasant. Four years afterwards
Louis XIV. ennobled Buffon and invited him to
Fontairiebleau to offer him the post of Adminis-
trator of the Forests of France, but Buffon declined
the office. This great man was not above a little
vanity : he liked to read the most interesting parts
of his works to his friends, and to draw forth their
admiration. He was, moreover, fond of dress and
grandeur, but that was part of the society of his day.
He had a fine countenance and figure, and it was his
delight to display them to the best advantage. He
dressed in the extreme of fashion, and amidst his
studies found time to submit his head (perhaps it was
only his wig) to the hairdresser, two or three times
a day. On Sundays the peasantry of Montbard
assembled to gaze at the Count after the service of
the church, when he passed through their ranks mag-
nificently dressed, with his son and his retainers.

The natural history was translated into English,
German, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch, and its
charming pages brought a knowledge of nature to
many a home. Like most naturalists of eminence,

BUFFON. 151

Buffon interested himself about the ancient history
of the earth. His writings were not original in that
part of his subject, but what he did write contained,
much common sense. Nevertheless, the Faculty of
Theology at Paris found fault with the geology, and
informed him that no less than fourteen proposi-
tions in his works were reprehensible and contrary
to the creed of the Church. Buffon was invited to
recant, which he very foolishly did ; and it must be
mentioned that the " improper statements " are now
believed in, by every educated man. It has been
written of the great naturalists of the past, that
Aristoteles has shown the profound combination of
the laws of nature, Plinius her inexhaustible riches,
Linnaeus her wonderful details, and Buffon her
majesty and power. Certainly his great work
contains such pictures of nature as were never
given before, and rarely since, by any naturalist.
Buffon therefore had the happiness of bringing the
cultivation of the science more generally into
fashion than it had been previously. He was defi-
cient in the orderly method of science, however;
his work, supremely interesting and popular, was
soon found to be inconsistent with the severely
scientific study of nature. This want of order and
classification led to the establishment of a new
school of zoology.

Buffon's social position was of great value and
importance to him as a naturalist and to the state
also, for he became the object of personal regard
to many distinguished foreign princes, who did not

152 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

hesitate to make presents of specimens to the
national museums, through him. His wealth also
enabled him to help the state, for he often pur-
chased minerals and specimens of animals for which
no public money had been granted. Frederick the
Great of Prussia and his son Henry, the Emperor
Joseph n. of Austria, Catherine of Russia, and
the kings of Norway and Sweden, all knew Buffon,
admired his works, and sent presents in order to
complete his museum, which was devoted and given
by him to the- public. The Jardin du Roi was
greatly enlarged at Buffon's expense, and public
opinion spoke well of the amiable and benevolent
owner of Montbard.

But, as with other and less happily placed men,
Buffon had to suffer, and the loss of his child, fol-
lowed by the death of the wife he tenderly loved,
in the prime of her life, were great shocks to him.
He never was the same man afterwards, and sought
to find forgetfulness in increased work and literary
toil. Moreover, the ingratitude of the ruling power
affected Buffon, who behaved, however, excellently,
and took up the position which every man of his
social condition should have maintained.

In February, 1771, Buffon was alarmingly ill,
and, unknown to him, the king, Louis XV., nomi-
nated a Count d'Angiviller, to succeed in the
administration of the Museums and Jardin de Roi.
Buffon recovered, and found out this little job, and
was naturally annoyed at the indecent haste of
putting a man in his place at such a crisis ; but he

BUFFON. 153

was most indignant when he knew who the man
was — an ignoramus and court favourite, a perfectly-
incompetent man. It is said that Louis XV. on
this occasion, to compensate Buffon for his annoy-
ance, raised the Montbard property to the holding
of a count. Certainly he ordered the sculptor,
Pajon, to erect a full-sized statue of Buffon in the
garden during his absence, and to put the inflated
inscription on it, " His genius equals the majesty of
nature." Buffon resented this, and he wrote to the
President de Ruffey : " I thank you for the part
you have taken in procuring this statue, which I
neither required nor solicited, and which would
have done me greater honour if it had been erected
after my death. I have always thought that a wise
man should rather fear envy then value glory ; all
this has been done without consulting me."

Some years afterwards an architect, who was
employed in embellishing some of the buildings in
the Jardin du Roi, wished to compliment Buffon,
but this simple-minded, scientific man stated, " I
cannot agree to any expenditure which will con-
tribute to my personal glory, and I had nothing to
do with the statue they erected to me." In writing
to Madame Necker, he showed how exactly he
understood the French court, and appreciated its
praises : " I passed the whole of yesterday and the
day before in making observations and notes on a
most important project presented to the king,
relating to the planting of 100,000 fir trees for the
masts of the navy. I would not grudge the time if

154 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

my advice were likely to be useful and valued and
taken ; but in the high circle where you have not
cared about remaining, they do sometimes consult
competent men, and end, invariably, by following
the advice of the ignorant."

Buffon lived for many years after these troubles,
and gained fresh laurels. Those which will last
the longest were the results of his charming de-
scriptions of the habits of animals. At last, at the
age of eighty-one years, he died, full of honours,
his last words addressed to his son being, " My son,
never leave the path of virtue and honour ; it is
the true road to happiness."

About a year before the death of George I., a
son was born to a family of good old name and
renown at Downing, in Flintshire. The child was
christened Thomas, and his other name was Pen-
nant, and these names are constantly coming
before naturalists who particularly study zoology
at the present time. Little is known about the
early years of this ardent student, except that he
was educated at Wrexham school. Like most
boys he took notice of birds and their habits, and
if one may judge from the results, he must have
really begun to study the different kinds of birds,
carefully, when he was about twelve years of age.
He owed his opening career as a zoologist to Ray
and Willughby, for it was a present made to him
of the book of birds of this last author, that drew
his attention to the study of nature which he never
subsequently neglected.

PENNANT. 155

After leaving school, Pennant was sent to Ox-
ford, where his studies do not appear to have been
of any importance, so far as the subjects which
were taught were concerned. He did not take his
degree, and yet it is evident that he studied the
nature of things visible to him, and that he was
well read in the science of the day. His mind was
rather influenced by the writings of Linnaeus, and
in consequence he took an interest in mineralogy as
well as about natural history. Immediately after
leaving Oxford, Pennant began to travel about his
own country, and visited Cornwall. He examined
many of the mines, and studied the natural history
of the districts, but he did not publish anything,
being apparently an earnest student of what was
already known. When twenty-four years of age
an earthquake occurred at Downing, and Pennant
wrote a description of it, which was read before
the Royal Society and published in the " Philo-
sophical Transactions." This was a great honour
for so young a man. Animals, however, and their
shapes, habits, and similarities were his special
study, and he laboured hard, year after year, in
describing them. He got much practical knowledge
of those of our own country, and finally, at the age
of thirty-five, in 1761, he commenced the publication
of his first great work, the " British Zoology," which
was printed in large folio, and when complete con-
tained one hundred and thirty-two plates. He was
well known before this magnificent work appeared,
and Linnaeus had urged the University of Upsala to

156 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

elect him a member of their Royal Society. His
great book appeared afterwards in smaller editions,
and one in quarto is often used.

The " British Zoology " included the description
of the species of animals at that time known to
inhabit Great Britain, except the insects. So good
was the work and so accurate were the descriptions,
that it was translated into Latin and German, and
had a large circulation abroad. Anxious to com-
pare his work with those of foreign naturalists, and
to see the specimens of similar animals in the great
continental museums. Pennant travelled abroad in
1765, and made the acquaintance of the most im-
portant zoologists of the day. He visited Bufifon
at Montbard, and their friendship led to a corre-
spondence, which lasted for years. Then he went on
to Switzerland, and met Haller at Berne. Coming
home by way of Germany and Holland, he met a
distinguished traveller and naturalist, Pallas by
name. Pennant wrote about him : " Our conver-
sation related chiefly to natural history, and as we
were both enthusiastic admirers of our great Ray,
I proposed his undertaking a history of quadru-
peds on the system of our countryman, a little
reformed. He assented to my plan, and wrote me
a long letter in which he sent me an outline of his
design, and his resolution to pursue it with all the
expedition consistent with his other engagements."
Pallas went to Russia, and never accomplished his
object, but Pennant followed out the idea himself,
and in 1771 published a work wath the title of

PENNANT. 157

"A Synopsis of Quadrupeds," illustrated with about
thirty plates. This was intended as a kind of
index to the species of animals described by
Bufifon in his great work on natural history. He
gradually, however, extended its limits, and in-
cluded in it the description of many animals which
he had observed in collections or which had been
discovered by travellers, and which had been un-
known to Buffon. Years afterwards the great
Cuvier said of this work, "that it is still indispen-
sable to those who wish to study the history of
quadrupeds."

Struck with the interesting nature of the animals
of India, which were then beginning to be studied,
Pennant commenced a work about them, and
twelve plates were completed. But it was a work
far beyond the powers and pocket of a naturalist
of that date, and it was not completed. A more
congenial work was undertaken by him when he
rambled about Scotland noticing the habits of the
people and the birds. He seems to have observed
much that was interesting, and to have published
his remarks. Then he began a work on the genera
of birds, on the plan of his books on quadrupeds, and
this was not completed. He wrote a book on "Arctic
Zoology," which was of course a compilation from
the works of travellers and foreign zoologists who
had visited the countries within the arctic circle.
He also received stuffed specimens from different
foreign museums. It was a capital book, and it
acquired a considerable reputation amongst natural-

158 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

ists, from its containing figures and descriptions of
animals hitherto but little known. It is read
at the present day, and is a proof of Pennant's
exactitude. Ever anxious to go on working, he
even in his sixty-seventh year planned an extensive
work which was to consider the natural history and
antiquities of every country in the world. He
absolutely did produce two great volumes of this
work, taking Hindostan as his subject.

The great merit of Pennant was that he observed
so much and was a capital practical zoologist.
Moreover, his great knowledge of other things and
his general accomplishments enabled him to sift
the good from the bad zoology of his day. He
appears to have lived the life of a student and
naturalist when the kingdom was always in a
whirlwind of politics, and when foreign troubles pre-
vailed. Unlike most of his class, for he was a little
country squire, living on his own estate at Down-
ing, he devoted himself to nature, and for many
years his books gave great enjoyment to thousands
of his countrymen. They are most readable books,
full of anecdotes, and it is evident that he was a
master of his mother tongue, a great antiquary,
besides a naturalist of the first order. He was
one of the few men who followed the science of
zoology without having the previous education of a
medical man, and, like all good zoologists, he was
an excellent botanist.

Some of Pennant's tours through England, Wales,
and Scotland are exceedingly instructive in the

PENNANT. 159

antiquities of places, but the most interesting re-
marks are upon natural history subjects, some of
which are scientific and others not at all so. When
in Lincolnshire he noticed the fens near Revesby
Abbey, eight miles beyond Horncastle, which he j
says are of vast extent, but serve for little other >
purpose than the rearing of great numbers of geese,
which are the wealth of the fenmen. " During the
breeding season these birds are lodged in the same
houses with the inhabitants and even in their very
bed-chambers. In every apartment there are three
rows of coarse wicker pens, placed one above
another ; each bird has its separate lodge divided
from the other, which it keeps possession of during
its time of setting. A person called a gozzard
attends the flock, and twice a day drives the whole
to water ; then brings them back to their habita-
tions, helping those that live in the upper stories
to their nests, without even misplacing a single
bird. The geese are plucked five times in the
year. The first plucking is at Lady Day, for feathers
and quills, and the same is renewed, for feathers
only, four times between this and Michaelmas.
The old geese submit very quietly to the operation,
but the young ones are very noisy and unruly. I
once saw this performed, and observed that the
goslings of six weeks old were not spared, for their
tails were plucked, as I was told to habituate them
early to what they were to come to. If the season
proves cold, numbers of geese die from this bar-
barous custom. Vast numbers are driven annually

l6o HEROES OF SCIENCE.

to London to supply the markets ; among them all
the superannuated geese and ganders (here called
cagmags) which serve to fatigue the jaws of the
good citizens who are so unfortunate as to meet
with them." He proceeds, " It is observable that
once in seven or eight years, immense shoals of
sticklebacks appear in the Welland below Spalding,
and attempt coming up the river in a vast column.
They are supposed to be the collected multitudes
washed out of the fens by the floods of several
years, and carried into some deep hole. When, over-
charged with numbers, they are obliged to attempt
a change of place, they move up the river in such
quantities as to enable a man who was employed
in taking them, to earn, for a considerable time, four
shillings a day by selling them at a halfpenny per
bushel. They were used to manure land, and
attempts have been made to get oil from them."
'* The birds which inhabit the different fens are
very numerous ; I never met with a finer field for
the zoologist to range in. Besides the common wild
duck, wild geese, gorganies, pochards, shovellers, and
teals breed here. I have seen in the east fen a
small flock of the tufted ducks ; but they seemed
only to make it a baiting place. The pewits, gulls,
and black terns abound ; the last in vast flocks
almost deafen one with their clamour, and a few of
the great terns are seen amongst them. I saw
several of the great crested grebes on the east fen,
called there gaunts, and met with one of their
floating nests with eggs in it. The lesser crested

PENNANT. l6l

grebe, the black and dusky grebe, and the little grebe
are also inhabitants of the fens, together with the
coots, water-hens, spotted water-hens, water-rails,
ruffs, redshanks, lapwings or wipes, red crested god-
wits and whimbrels." " But the greatest curiosity
in those parts is the vast heronry at Cressi Hall,
six miles from Spalding. The herons resort there
in February to repair their nests, settle there in the
spring to breed, and quit the place during the
winter. They are as numerous as rooks, and their
nests are so crowded together that myself and the
company that was with me, counted not less than
eighty on one spreading oak. I found that the
crested heron was only the male of the other, and
it made a most beautiful appearance with its snowy
neck and long crest streaming with the wind."
Visiting Scarborough, and giving much information
about the different kinds of fish caught, he states :
" At a distance of four or five leagues from shore,
during the months of July and August, it is remarked
that at the depth of six or seven fathoms from the
surface, the water appears to be saturated like a
thick jelly, filled with the ova of fish, which reaches
ten or twelve fathoms deeper ; this is known by its
adhering to the ropes, the cables, and anchor when
they are fishing." "Landing at a small island
further north, we found the female eider ducks at
that time sitting ; the lower part of their nests was
made of sea plants, the upper part was formed of
the down which they pulled off their own breasts,
in which the eggs were surrounded and warmly
I. M

1 62 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

bedded. In some nests were three and in others
five eggs of large size and pale olive colour, as
smooth and glossy as if varnished over. The nests
are built on the beach among the loose pebbles,
not far from the water. The ducks sit very close,
nor will they rise until you almost tread upon
them. We robbed the nests of some down, and
found that the down of one only weighs three
quarters of an ounce, but was so elastic as to fill
the crown of a hat."

Pennant deserved good health and had it, for,
except when old age came on, he was a singularly
healthy man. He died in 1798, at the age of
seventy-two years.

Jean Baptiste Antoine de Monet, also called the
Chevalier de Lamarck, was born at Bazantin, a
village of Picardy, on April ist, 1744. He was
the eleventh child of Pierre de Monet, the principal
person of the neighbourhood, whose small estate
was disproportionate to his huge family. But the
Church was a resource for such families, and occa-
sionally its great prizes were taken by the younger
members of noble houses. So M. de Monet deter-
mined to prepare his son, at an early age, for this
hopeful future, and sent him to the Jesuit College
at Amiens. However, the inclinations of the child
were not those which made it probable that he
would succeed in the direction which his father had
chosen for him. Everything around the boy, at
home, was quite opposed to a clerical career. For
centuries his ancestors had carried arms, and his

DE LAMARCK. 1 63

eldest brother was killed at the siege of Bergen-op-
Zoom. Two brothers were in the army, and at that
time France was in dire trouble, and required every
man who could fight, it was therefore not probable
that young Lamarck would stay at home. Never-
theless, his father resisted his desire to enter the
army, and the young man had to study year after
year, until he was sixteen years of age. Then in
1 760 the father died, and the youth was left to his
own resources. He set forth for the army, mounted
on a sorry horse, and accompanied by a poor boy
out of the village, to journey across France into
Germany to join the French army. He had a
letter of introduction from one of his neighbours,
Madame Lameth, to M. de Lartie, colonel of the
regiment of Beaujolais, who did not receive him
very gladly, for the wretchedness of the boy made
him look more helpless than he really was. Never-
theless, he sent Lamarck to his barracks and had
him to do duty. It was at a most critical moment
that the brave, self-reliant boy joined the army. It
was about July 14th, 1 761, and M. de Broglie
had just united his force with that of [the Prince du
Sorbise, preparatory to attacking, on the next day,
the allied army, commanded by Frederick of Bruns-
wick. At break of day M. de Lartie inspected his
regiment, and the first person he saw was the newly-
arrived volunteer, who, without orders, had placed
himself in the first rank of the grenadier company.
The battle, which was fought at Fissingshausen,
between Ham and Leppstadt, was lost by the

164 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

French, and during the fight, the company, in which
was M. de Lamarck, was placed in a locaHty on
which the whole of the allied artillery was con-
centrated, and it was forgotten to be moved during
the confusion of the retreat. All the officers and
sub-officers were killed, and only sixteen men re-
mained, when the oldest grenadier, seeing that they
were left behind by their army, proposed to the
young volunteer that they should retreat. Lamarck
said, " They have posted us here, and we ought not
to move until we are relieved," and insisted on re-
maining. By-and-by the colonel, missing the com-
pany, sent them an order to retreat by safe ways,
and under the shelter of what they could get. This
act of great courage was told to the Marshal de
Broglie, and he made Lamarck an officer on the
spot. Then he was made lieutenant. But such a
brilliant commencement was not to have a military
termination, and a miserable accident gave a new
direction to his life. When Lamarck, after the
war, was in garrison at Monaco, one of his fellow-
officers lifted him up by the head, and the result
was to injure his neck. He nearly died from the
effects of this folly, and was saved by a distinguished
surgeon at Paris, M. Tenon, whose operation left
Lamarck with life, and a fearfully scarred neck, and
unable to follow his profession. The treatment
occupied a whole year, and he was so poor, that
one of his biographers states, rather cruelly, that his
necessary solitude gave him plenty of time for medi-
tation. It is remarkable that although I^amarck

DE LAMARCK. 1 65

cared more for the army than for his studies at
college he really worked there, and what he learned
was of great use to him in his future career. His
hours of weary suffering were sometimes employed
in studying the clouds, and in noticing their dif-
ferent shapes and appearances. He got by this
means some vague ideas of meteorology. ' E[£jiad
already been attracted, during his stay at Monaco,
by Jhi^curious vegetation of that rocky country,
and had taken a fancy for botany from reading a
treatise on common plants, which happened to fall
m his way. H^therefore began to see that the
projession of arms was not the only one worth
living for, or in which distinction might be earned ;
and he took the bold resolution of applying himself
tQ_the study o£ medicine. This, considering the
smallness of his resources, was hardly less hazardous
than his former determination to join the army.
Unable to defray the expense attending the studies
to which he now applied himself, he was forced to
seek employment as a banker's clerk, and thus to
work for the means of pursuing his purpose. He
studied medicine four years, and at the end of that
time, not finding it accord with his taste, he re-
linquished it, in order to attach himself the more
closely to botany. In this science he laboured
most perseveringly, and after a preparation of ten
years he suddenly revealed himself and his views
to the learned world in a work as remarkable for
the novelty of the plan, as for the mode of execu-
tion. " For a long time," says Cuvier, " while col-

1 66 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

lecting plants, and visiting the Jardin du Roi,
Lamarck gave way to discussions with other bota-
nists on the imperfections of all the systems of
classification then known, and on the ease with
which a new system might be created, capable of
determining plants with greater quickness and cer-
tainty. Wishing to prove what he had so often
affirmed he set to work, and after six months of
incessant labour he produced his " Flore Frangaise."
This work was merely an epitome of plants in-
digenous to France, to which Lamarck had not
ventured to add one new species ; but it was a con-
venient and sure guide to the name of every plant,
and was peculiarly acceptable at a time when the
writings of Rousseau had rendered botany popular.
By Lamarck's arrangement, the most easily re-
conciled portions of the systems then in vogue,
namely, those of Tournefort, Linnaeus, and Jussieu,
were selected to form a new method of classifica-
tion. This method was admired by the Academy
of Sciences, and was also recommended by Buffon,
who had sufficient interest to get it published at
the expense of the government, for the benefit of
the author who much needed such aid. Lamarck
was promoted to a vacant place in the Academic
des Sciences, and during 1781-82 he went as tutor
and botanist to BuffiDn's son through Holland, Ger-
many, and Hungary, visiting public establishments
and learned men. On his return to France, he
applied himself zealously to his former studies, and
produced the botanical portion of the "Encyclo-

DE LAMARCK. 1 6/

pedie Methodique." Lamarck laboured diligently
at his work, and even with too much precipitation,
for haste was injurious to correctness. He also drew
a series of plates to illustrate the different genera
of plants. These appeared, arranged according to
the Linnsean system, though contrary to the wish
of the author. Lamarck went on with the work
until the breaking out of the Revolution arrested
the publication of the Encyclopedic.

In 1788 Lamarck was associated with Dau-
benton as botanist of the Cabinet du Jardin du
Roi, and charged with the preservation and
arrangement of the herbariums. Here, amidst
his peaceful occupations and studies, he remained
unmolested amidst all the troubles of the Revolu-
tion. But Lamarck was miserably poor ; his
pension for his services in the army, was less than
one shilling a day, and he wrote for bad pay.
Buffon could not give him a position worth any-
thing ; and it was not until the successor of that
great man came in office that Lamarck had a little
salary given to him as one of the assistants in the
herbarium. Even this miserable appointment was
not assured to him, for the National Assembly was
desirous of suppressing the establishment, and
finally did so. Lamarck had married, and had aj
family, and weary indeed must have been his life]
had he not been devoted to science. He took no
part in the French revolution, and whilst poverty
at home and danger out of doors were constant, he
persisted in studying nature. Years passed away,

1 68 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

and tlie best part of a life was spent, and still
Lamarck was not a zoologist. The eternal fame
which he attained began to be earned after the
fiftieth year of his age, when circumstances over
which he had no control gave him the opportunity
of distinguishing himself, and of adding materially
to the truths of science as well as to its theories.
The Jardin et Cabinet du Roi were rearranged in!
their purpose and name in 1793, and were called
the Museum of Natural History ; and all the old
officials were made professors, and had to teach
the subjects best known or chosen by them
Lamarck, as the last comer, had to take what the
others left and would not undertake to teach. It
was the professorship which related to the class of
animals, called by Linnaeus, worms and insects, and
which had hitherto been almost overlooked, on
account of the supposed unimportance of the
subject.

Until that time Lamarck had never studied
animals, and of course knew nothing of the
branch of zoology which was now entrusted to
him. He had taken an interest in shells, and had
made a small collection, but this was all. But he
did not shrink from the task before him. He set
to work with inexhaustible courage, availing him-
self of the advice of his friends, and applying to
the new study all that sagacity and perseverance
which had already been so invaluable to him in his
botanical works. By his indefatigable zeal in this
new sphere of inquiry Lamarck was soon enabled

DE LAMARCK. 1 69

to discover and to demonstrate that the animals
whose history had been left to him through con-
tempt, were quite as interesting as others, if not
more so, on account of their vast numbers, the
important part they perform in nature, the infinite
variety of their forms, and the wonders of their
organization. ^His extraordinary labours in this
department have contributed much more to his
fame than his botanical writings, and are certainly
more valuable.'^He seems to have exercised his
abilities to the utmost in these researches ; and if,
since that time, it has been necessary in some
instances to alter, to amend, or to extend the
limits of his work, yet it remains a lasting memento
of his talents, and it will be long ere any one will
be found sufficiently profound in knowledge to
undertake a general revision and alteration of his
works.

At the present day, when any student begins to
learn the zoology of the lower animals, he will find
a very great number of genera with the name of
Lamarck placed after them, indicating that he first
of all described and published them. As the
student becomes accomplished he will appreciate
Lamarck more and more, and will come to the
conclusion that no one has done such good and
solid work as that distinguished Frenchman,
amongst the vast assemblage of animals which he
first of all called invertebrata, or animals without
backbones. This term he used in preference to
the old one of white or colourless-blooded animals,

I/O HEROES OF SCIENCE.

as he soon saw that some had red blood. Lamarck
worked very hard in describing and grouping the
genera, and gradually modified the zoology of
those lower forms of life. First of all he classified n
them by their anatomy, and then, after about /
fifteen years' labour, remodelled his classification, /
and published a system of invertebrata, containing/
the classes, orders, and genera of the animals, men-/
tioning their most important anatomical characters]
In this book he, for the first time amongst zoolo-
gists, began with the most simple and least highly
organized animals, the converse having been the
method previously. There was a reason in this
that will be noticed further on. Out of the con-
fusion of old he made the great groups appear
clear and well defined. Thus from amongst the
insects he separated the Crustacea or crab tribe,
and he introduced that of the arachnida or spiders.
Then he described and limited a class of worms
called by him annelida ; moreover, he placed the
microscopic infusoria in a class by themselves, and ~
removed them from the jumble of the polypes.
His work extended into the moUusca, both bivalve
and univalve ; he named many genera and species
of corals, and in every group showed a master
mind. The fossil shells found in such abundance at
this time, in the neighbourhood of Paris, attracted
his attention, and he laboured on their description
and explanation. In fact, the enormous labours of
Lamarck consolidated the zoology of the lower
animals, and his writings became the text-books of

{

DE LAMARCK. 17I

all his successors^and will be referred to, as long as
science lasts. He had a most singular capacity for
distinguishing animals into kinds or species, and
a more important one of observing the alliances or
common characters of different species. All his de-
scriptive work was of a standard and solid nature.
(His great work appeared from 18 15 to i822nand
it was founded on that just mentioned ; some of
it was edited by his daughter, and M. Latreille
wrote the parts on insects, and much of those of
the mollusca was due to M. Valenciennes. Five
volumes were by Lamarck himself
. It is a very unusual occurrence for a man to
take up a new subject after he is fifty years of
age, and to become a master in it. But Lamarck
did this. It is true that his previous training as
a botanist had prepared him, and it is also true
that his years of solitude and poverty had given
him a singularly placid and meditative mind,
and this was strengthened by his natural courage.
Had Lamarck been a descriptive zoologist only, he
would have been great ; but the very method which
made him great originated in some remarkable
speculations which had hardly been expressed,
seriously, by any man before. Not only did he
place the animal kingdom with the lowest first,
but he considered the will, instinct, and apparent
reason of animals, and classified them accordingly
with those which are apathetic, sensible, and intel-
ligent. The idea of lowness of organization or of
structure and lowness of nervous power amongst

172 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

the simplest animals struck him to be of primary
importance. Hitherto, quite as many people
believed that the highest and most intelligent
animals were created first, and that the lower ones
had degenerated from them. Lamarck conceived
that nature, acting by law, commenced with the
simplest things, and that one species formed
others, so that the present animals and plants are
the outcome of those of the past history of the
earth. He believed in incessant change in nature,
and that when our knowledge is complete the
apparently well separated and defined species will
be found to be united by intermediate forms, and
cease to be species.

Hitherto naturalists had considered kinds of
animals and plants, or species as they are more
properly called, to have been specially created as
they are seen by us, and that they were unalterable
and invariable. No one with any great knowledge
of animals and plants had speculated about the
origin of species, and the causes of the differences
of kinds, or had endeavoured to place all the great
classes of the animal kingdom in a series, main-
taining that they were related by descent. Right
or wrong in his speculations, Lamarck made an
epoch in zoology, by writing on the philosophy of
zoology, and dealing with the possible causes of
the different kinds of animals. He considered that
during all the geological ages, down to the present
time, animals and plants had been exposed to great
changes in their external conditions; changes of

DE LAMARCK.

^73

climate, and of physical geography had happened,
and that whilst some species had become extinct
many had been changed, little by little, into others.
Lamarck, and M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire declared it
to be their opinion that there had been an uninter-
rupted succession in the animal kingdom, effected
by means of birth and offspring from parents, from
the earliest ages of the world to the present day,
and that the ancient animals, whose remains have
been preserved in strata, however different, may
nevertheless have been the ancestors of those now
in being.

If the reader will turn to the short notice of
Aristoteles, he will find the ordinary idea of what a
species means given. But Lamarck added some-
thing : " A species consists of a collection of in-
dividuals resembling each other, and reproducing
their like by generation, so long as the surrounding
conditions do not alter to such an extent as to
cause their habits, characters, and forms to vary."
He stated what is only known to those naturalists
who have had experience ; the more we advance in
the knowledge of the different organized bodies
which cover the surface of the globe, the more our
embarrassment increases to determine what ought
to be regarded as a species, and still more how to
limit and distinguish genera. In proportion as our
collections are enriched, we see almost every void
filled up, and all our lines of separation effaced ; we
are reduced to arbitrary determinations, and are
sometimes fain to seize upon the slight differences

1/4 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

of mere varieties in order to form characters for
what we choose to call a species, and sometimes we
are induced to pronounce individuals, but slightly
differing, and which others regard as true species,
to be varieties. The greater the abundance of
natural objects assembled together, the more do we
discover proofs that everything passes by invariable
shades into something else ; that even the more
remarkable differences are evanescent, and that
nature has, for the most part, left us nothing at our
disposal for establishing distinctions save trifling,
and in some instances puerile, peculiarities. We
find that many genera amongst animals and plants
are of such an extent, in consequence of the number
of species referred to them, that the study and
determination of these last has become almost im-
practicable. From a great number of facts we
learn, wrote Lamarck, that in proportion as the
individuals of one of our known species change
their situation, climate, and manner of living, they
change also little by little, the consistence and
proportions of their parts, their form, their facul-
ties, and even their organization, in such a manner
that everything in them comes at last to participate
in the mutations to which they have been exposed.
Even in the same climate, a great difference of
situation and exposure causes individuals to vary ;
but if these individuals continue to live, and to be
reproduced under the same difference of circum-
stances, distinctions are brought about in them
which become in some degree essential to their

DE LAMARCK. 1/5

existence; and, in a word, at the end of many-
successive generations, these individuals which
originally belonged to another species are trans-
formed into a new and distinct species.

All this came from the study of a man who had
an enormous experience, and if he had not gone on
any further it would have been better. Lamarck's
views already stated may be accepted by every-
body, and the grand changes in living forms under
law are doubtless true. But he introduced the
notion that "wants" exercised an influence and
produced new organs, and wrote about effects of
internal sentiment, and the influence of subtle
fluids. Thus he argued that otters, beavers, water-
fowl, turtles, and frogs, were not made web-footed
in order that they might swim ; but their wants
having attracted them to the water in search of
prey, they stretched out the toes of their feet to
strike the water and move more rapidly along its
surface. By the repeated stretching of their toes,
the skin that united them at the base acquired the
habit of extension, until, in the course of time, the
broad membranes which now connect their ex-
tremities were formed.

Lamarck taught that the first animals and plants
which appeared on the globe were the simplest,
and that the more complex are of comparatively
late date. He insisted that nature was an order of
things constituted by the Supreme Being, and sub-
ject to laws which are the expressions of His will.
There is no doubt that these views of Lamarck

1/6 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

were the result of many a pleasant hour of thought
when things were dark enough around him. /_He
was always poor, he married four times, had a large
family, and a very small income. His genius led
him to investigate other branches of natural science
for which his education had not very well preparea
him, and he got into disgrace with Napoleon foi'
paying attention to meteorology. His patrimonj-
and savings were lost in some wild speculation, ana
his thorough independence of thought and be-\
haviour did not make him friends with the great
and wealthy. His sight failed, and age grew apace,
and he may be said to have simply existed fori
some years. Strangers and scientific men saw his|
state and poverty with surprise and regret ; and
their sympathy with Lamarck was redoubled when
they observed the fortitude with which the illus-
trious old man supported the vicissitudes of fortune,
and the failing of his natural powers. They alsp
admired the devotion with which he had been abl^
to inspire those of his children who remained unde*
his roof. His eldest daughter consecrated her tim^ i
to the duties of filial love for many years, never
quitting her father for an instant, lending herself to
every study which could in any way supply th:
defect of his vision, writing under his dictation
part of his last works, accompanying him, and sup-
porting him when he was able to take any exercise,
and enduring sacrifices greater than could be ex4
pressed for his sake. When the father could nq
longer leave his chamber, the daughter no longer

t>E LAMARCK. 177

quitted the house. So long was she deprived of
fresh air, that when she again faced the open breeze
it was more than she could bear. If such conduct
as this is rare, so is the power of inspiring such
devoted affection ; therefore we add to the renown
of Lamarck, when it is told what his children
endured for his sake. Lamarck died on the i8th
December, 1829, aged eighty-five, and left two sons
and two daughters behind him. Full of ability
and perseverance, he has left such monuments of
industry and solid learning behind him, that his
favourite theory, containing indeed the germs of
truth, may be well pardoned. People who know
nothing of his good work, laugh at his memory ;
but every true student of nature constantly recog-
nizes his obligations to the founder of philosophical
zoology.

N

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LIFE OF CUVIER.

The union of zoology and comparative anatomy, and the examina-
tion and study of fossil remains.

George Leopold Chretien Frederic Dagobcrt
Cuvier was born at Montbeliard, in the Depart-
ment du Doubs, a town which was subse-
quently united to France, although at the time
of Cuvier's birth it belonged to the kingdom of
Wurtemberg. He was born on August 23rd,
1769. His family originally came from a village
in the Jura mountains, which still bears the name
of Cuvier ; but, becoming the victims of religious
persecution, they were obliged to leave and to go
to reside at Montbeliard at the time of the Reform-
ation. Cuvier's grandfather had two sons, one cele-
brated for his learning, and the other belonging to
a Swiss regiment in the French service. The soldier,
after forty years' service, retired on a small
pension to Montbeliard, where he was appointed

CUVIER. 179

commandant of the artillery of the town. He was
made Chevalier de I'Ordre Merite Militaire, which,
among Protestants, was equal to the Catholic order
of the Croix de St. Louis. The old soldier
married, late in life, a young and highly accom-
plished lady, by whom he had three sons. The
eldest died a short time before the birth of the
second, who is the subject of this biography, and
who was extremely delicate. The mother, sad at
the death of her firstborn, took the curious fancy
of calling her little weak second child by the name
of George, which was that of her firstborn also.
Cuvier was not baptized with that name, although
he ever used it in deference to his mother ; but in
after years, when legal difficulties presented them-
selves, he took the necessary measures to have a
right to use the name. Feeble in constitution, the
child required all the attention of his mother, and
he never forgot her loving care. She taught him
carefully and well during his early years, and the
child grew strong and able. He could read
fluently at the age of four years, and when the
time came for him to be placed at school, the
mother went over his exercises at night, and by
her good knowledge of Latin enabled him to be
better prepared than any other boy in the school,
for his daily tasks. She taught him drawing, and
this necessary art was subsequently taught Cuvier
by an architect in the town. At the age of ten
years he was placed at a school of a higher
description of teaching, called the Gymnasc, where

I80 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

he remained until he was fourteen. Cuvier made
rapid progress at this school, and he was constantly
at the head of his classes, and he became a fair
classic. It was at that time that the future great
zoologist began to like natural history, and he
began by studying animals. One of his relations
had a complete copy of Buffon's works, and the
boy's study of it was constant. He copied the plates
of animals and birds, and coloured them according
to the printed descriptions, and when he could not
use water-colours, employed pieces of coloured silk
to denote the tints of the wings. When he was able
to borrow the book, a volume was his constant
attendant, and he read the work over and over
again. About this time, Cuvier, being the leading
spirit in the school, began to collect his school-
fellows and to get them to discuss the merits of
books on natural history, philosophy, and travels,
etc., taking the chair as president. The assembly
must have been amusing in the extreme, and these
little "prigs" doubtless expressed their opinions
very decidedly. Cuvier managed to teach himself
to speak in public, however, and was not. a bad
hand at declamation. So, on the anniversary
f^te of the Duke of Wurtemberg, he composed an
oration in verse on the prosperous state of the
principality, and delivered it, fresh from his pen,
in a manly tone which astonished the audience.
Nevertheless, Cuvier was snubbed by his master,
who put him down to the third place, giving the
palm to two other boys. It is said that there was

CUVIER. I8l

some favouritism in this affair ; but it was a blow
to the boy, whose future career depended on the
place he might take at the school on the occasion.
Nevertheless, as things turned out, Cuvier had
every reason to be very thankful. The fame of
the young student, and his disappointment, reached
the ears of Duke Charles by means of the princess,
his sister-in-law, and when he visited Montbeliard
he saw Cuvier, and asked him questions and looked
at his drawings. The duke, satisfied that he had
a good subject before him, agreed to send him
to Stuttgard to the university, where the youth
would be well educated, free of expense, in the
duke's own academy. At this academy the pupils
were instructed in every branch of knowledge that
was actually useful to men destined to govern and
direct the affairs of communities, and m.any who
were educated there, became members of the
various courts of Germany and Russia. The
school had a military character, the scholars wear-
ing uniforms and being under the orders of a
colonel and major ; but the education was not mili-
tary, and such men as Schiller were taught there.

At the age of fourteen Cuvier quitted his home to
go to this school, and under circumstances enough
to frighten any school-boy. He travelled with the
chamberlain and secretary of the duke, sitting be-
tween them without understanding a word they said,
as they spoke German the whole time. He always
remembered this journey and its miseries. The
youth quickly made himself comfortable at the

1 82 HEROES OF SaENCE.

academy, and his really good training soon placed
him high amongst his fellows. For four years he
studied all that was taught in the higher classes,
mathematics, law, administration, tactics, and com-
merce, and obtaining various prizes, was made, with
five or six others out of the four hundred, to belong
to a class bearing the order of "Chevalerie." These
youths were under the immediate patronage of the
duke, and had privileges besides that of dining at a
separate table. Nine months after his arrival at
Stuttgart, Cuvier gained the prize in German. But
all this time Cuvier led a second life. Out in
the fields and in the museum he was supremely
happy. Collecting, observing, drawing, and de-
scribing were his occupations in his leisure hours,
and his drawings of birds, insects, and plants were
very excellent and correct. All the books he could
get on natural history he read, and the works of
Linnaeus were especially learned with zeal. At the
end of his academical career Cuvier was promised
a place in the administration of the country, and if
he had got it probably he would have become a
kind of civil service clerk, and have never been
heard of. But trouble came, and that of the
bitterest kind for a rising young man. Circum-
stances against which he could not bear up necessi-
tated his seeking a totally different kind of em-
ployment. The unsettled state of money and
finance in France caused Cuvier's father's pension
to be withheld, and the young man, very properly
desiring to be no burthen to his parents, gave up

CUVIER. 183

all hopes of political distinction, and accepted the
modest position of tutor to a French family, that of
M. d'Hericy, at Caen, in Normandy. He was to
educate the only son ; and so, without bewailing his
lot, which was thought a very sad one by his com-
panions and admirers, Cuvier settled down to work
and found that he was in the very position for
using those remarkable powers as a naturalist,
which determined his future career. The sea was
close by, and Cuvier began to study the marine
animals. After some time some fossils were dis-
covered at Fecamp, and Cuvier began to compare
them with the living things which most resembled
them. Then the accidental discovery of a cjjlamary
led him to study the higher mollusca, or shell-fish.
Cuvier also began to study the huge class of vermes,
or worms, in which Linnaeus had included a vast
number of lower animals, and which Lamark
subsequently investigated. Cuvier examined the
anatomy of the groups, and arranged them accord-
ing to their resemblances in structure. This was
an excellent piece of work, and it was done for the
purposes of self-instruction, and not for fame.
Nevertheless, the manuscript was full of good
observations and of new truths. Whilst Cuvier
was thus employed, and the time was that of the
reign of terror, a society was formed at Valmont,
in his neighbourhood, for the encouragement of
agriculture. L'Abbe Teissier had sought at the
place a refuge from the persecutions of the revo-
lutionists of Paris, and under the disguise of a

1 84 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

surgeon attended the meetings. On one occasion
Cuvier was struck with the manner of speaking of
the worthy old man, and thought that it resembled
the writings of the well-known Abb^. Inadvertently
Cuvier addressed him as L'Abb^, and this gave at
first great alarm. He found in Cuvier, however, a
great admirer and a generous friend, and was so
pleased with his talents and industry, that he after-
wards wrote to the celebrated botanist, Jussieu, as
follows : " At the sight of this young man, I ex-
perienced the delight of the philosopher who was
thrown on an unknown shore, and saw traced there
the figures of geometry. M. Cuvier is a violet
which was concealed among common herbs. He
knows much, and draws figures for your work. I
doubt your finding a more able person for com-
parative anatomy, for he demonstrates with much
method and clearness. It is a pearl worthy of being
gathered by you. I contributed to draw M. De-
larbre from his retreat, help me to draw M. Cuvier
from his ; he is made for science and the world."

Cuvier was, in consequence, asked to read some of
his essays to the Society of Natural History at Paris,
and these gave such satisfaction that he was invited
to take a position at the Jardin des Plantes. This
occurred in 1795, and Cuvier was then twenty-six
years of age. He was thus settled for life in the
very position he desired, for although called the
garden of plants, a grand museum of the compara-
tive anatomy of animals was to rise there under
the superintendence of the young man. He was

CUVIER. 185

soon made professor at the central school of the
Pantheon, and began to write capital manuals
of his subject for the students. The next year
the National Institute was formed, and Cuvier
was one of its first members. At this time his
knowledge of zoology was very great, and he had
more than the usual amount of information
about the internal anatomy of the different great
groups of animals. He published an elemen-
tary title or scheme of the natural history of
animals, and gradually the collection of skeletons
began to be great in his establishment. Cuvier
paid great attention to the relative shapes, and
different developments of the same kind of bones
in various animals, and especially to the nature
of their teeth. So great did his experience and
correct knowledge become, that he rarely failed in
naming an animal from part of its skeleton. This
power impressed Cuvier with the idea of a phi-
losophy in nature, and with the evidence of creative
design and purpose, of means for ends. But this
kind of study led to some very remarkable re-
sults. Had it influenced Cuvier as it previously
had zoologists, he would have still become the
most accomplished and important naturalist of this
century. It would have been said, as it may well
be, that he established the study of animals on a firm
basis, and that his natural classification has lasted,
because he considered not only the outsides of
animals, but also the importance of their most
peculiar organs, in arranging them into groups, or

1 86 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

separating them from others. But Cuvier had seen
and studied the bones and skulls of animals which
had been dug out of the earth in a mineralized
condition. The strata at Montmartre, near Paris,
had yielded a great number of bones, which pre-
sented some resemblances to those of animals still
living but which were clearly not the bones of any
existing genera or species. Comparative anatomy
was made to connect the past and present animals,
and to indicate the possibility of all the past and
present creation being placed in one great classifi-
cation. As Cuvier progressed in this study, he
endeavoured to restore, and with considerable
success, the extinct animal's shape, to discover
its habits and method of life, and to find out its
nearest modern ally. Palaeontology, or the study
of extinct animals, is under the greatest obliga-
tions to this great Frenchman, and it may be
called the zoology of the past ages of the earth.
He did not, however, forget his one great desire,
which was to form a perfect book on comparative
anatomy, and one in which all animals would find
a place, called " La Regne Animal." (The animal
kingdom.)

As soon as Cuvier found himself well established
as assistant to M. Mertrud, the professor of com-
parative anatomy to the Jardin des Plantes, he sent
for his old father, then eighty years of age, and for
his brother, M. F. Cuvier, to live with him. The
first thing he did was to collect all the available
specimens of bones and preparations of animals,

CUVIER. 187

and he found many hidden away in vaults and
which had been collected by Daubenton and Buffon.
Other specimens were obtained, and thus the
great collection was commenced. In 1796, Cuvier
discovered the curious fact that there is naturally
red blood in leeches, and in the following year he
read a famous paper on the nutrition of insects.
Refusing to go to Egypt, as he had his proper
work to do at home, for his pupils Dumeril and
Duvernoy were working hard for and with him,
dissecting and describing, the result was the
publication of the first volume of the lessons on
comparative anatomy already alluded to. This
led to Cuvier being made professor of natural
history to the College of France. Of the young
professor's ability there could be no doubt, and
everybody was struck with the excellent method
of his lectures and books. His mind was essen-
tially an orderly and very contemplative and rea-
soning one, and his fame soon reached the ears of
Napoleon, then first consul. He made Cuvier
one of the six inspectors general of education who
were to found public schools in some thirty towns
in France and what are now called Royal Colleges.
Cuvier founded those of Bordeaux, Nice, and Mar-
seilles. In this last-mentioned place he continued
his work on marine animals. Whilst Cuvier was
performing these very important duties for the
state, with great benefit to the towns and credit to
himself, he was chosen to be one of the perpetual
secretaries to the National Institute, and had a

1 88 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

salary given to him for it of two hundred guineas
a year. Although this sum was to be well earned,
and the secretary had to receive distinguished
foreigners at table, a fuss was made about it.
Cuvier, however, knew his own value, and insisted
on retaining it. The labourer is worthy of his hire,
and the sum was less than the salary of a first-class
clerk. A great Italian politician once said keep
the professors poor. Why ? Because he knew that
the diffusion of liberal knowledge would be fatal
to civil and military tyranny. However, Cuvier
gave up his school inspectorship and laboured on
at his favourite studies. He lost his father and
his brother's wife died leaving a child, so that
Cuvier and his brother were alone. Marriage be-
came a necessity for the rising man, and he was
attracted by a lady of great merit, who had
suffered both poverty and misfortune. Madame
Duvancel was the widow of an official who perished
on the scaffold in 1794, and she had some children
of her own. Cuvier had a great affection for her
and she made him happy, was a great companion,
and when he rose to his greatness, she was an
admirable helpmate. In 1808, as secretary to the
National Institute, Cuvier had to write a report
on the progress of the natural sciences from the
year 1789. A mere report was required, but
Cuvier was too thorough, and his essay was an
admirable and most lucid treatise. Napoleon, then
emperor, was greatly struck with it, and presented
the paper to the council of state. Some of the

CUVIER. 189

sentences should be written in letters of gold in
every senate and learned by heart by all politi-
cians. " The true object of science is to lead the
mind of man towards its noble destination — a know-
ledge of truth — to spread sound and useful ideas
among the lowest classes of the people, to draw
human beings from the effects of prejudices and
passions, to make reason the arbitrator and supreme
guide of public opinion." Napoleon, who nearly
always chose the best men for a place, made Cuvier
a counsellor of the new Imperial University, and
the two men thus came frequently in contact.
Repeated personal interviews preceded Cuvier's
appointment to organize new universities in the
foreign states more or less under the sway of
France. He undertook the reorganization of the
old Italian universities of Piedmont, Genoa, and
Tuscany. His reports of these missions speak of
the enlightenment of his mind and his truly
reasonable and very liberal spirit. Speaking of the
universities of Tuscany, he deprecates a too hasty
and rash interference with institutions which had
been founded and maintained by so many dis-
tinguished men of old and in which he found so
much to praise and to retain. He made good use
of his time in Tuscany by taking drawings of and
collecting fossil bones, and in 1 8 1 1 his great work
on the fossil remains of animals appeared. He
examined into the condition of the universities of
Holland, and finally those of lower Germany.
These journeys were doubly useful, for they es-

1 90 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

tablished his health and gave him plenty of oppor-
tunity of visiting museums. While at Hamburg,
Napoleon gave him the title of chevalier, which
was confirmed to him and his heirs. But such
honours were not destined to descend, for Cuvier
lost his son in his seventh year. It was a great
grief, and it saddened and subdued the man. This
trial happened when Cuvier was at Rome, trying
to arrange the universities there. Being a Pro-
testant, the mission was one requiring peculiar
forbearance and firmness. Yet the enlightened
tolerance of Cuvier, and his mild and benignant
manners, gained for him the esteem and respect of
all parties. Risen from the ranks, having been poor
and often anxious to know how to learn, Cuvier
was a capital man for his position. He paid par-
ticular attention not only to the higher branches
of education, but also to popular or elementary
education. His principle was that instruction would
lead to civilization, and civilization to morality,
and therefore that primary or elementary instruc-
tion should give to the people every means of
fully exercising their industry, without disgusting
them with their condition. That secondary in-
struction should expand the mind, without render-
ing it false or presumptuous ; and that special or
scientific instruction should give to France magis-
trates, advocates, generals, clergy, professors and
other men of learning. He taught — " give schools
before political rights ; make citizens comprehend
the duties that the state of society imposes on

CUVIER. 19 1

them ; teach them what are political rights before
you offer them for their enjoyment, and then all
amelioration will be made without causing a shock.
Imitate nature, which in the development of beings
acts by gradation, and gives time to every member
to arrive at perfection."

Napoleon had great confidence in Cuvier, and
wished to make him tutor to his son, and ordered
him to draw up a list of books as a preliminary
step. In 1 8 14 he made him a councillor of state,
and Louis XVIII. confirmed him in the appoint-
ment subsequently.

Cuvier wrote in early life, on living and fossil
elephants, the different species of rhinoceros, the
structure of ascidians, and the anatomy of bivalve
molluscs. Later on he described the crocodilians
of the old and new world and the fossil tapirs of
France. Subsequently to 1801 he read memoirs
on the teeth of fish, on the worms, the anatomy of
the mollusca, the comparative anatomy and classifi-
cation of fishes, the fossil mammals and reptiles,
and the bony structures of these last two groups.
Most of these works were the joint productions of
other very distinguished men and himself. Thus the
work on fishes, which contained descriptions of no
less than five thousand kinds, was by Cuvier and
Valenciennes. Year after year Cuvier added to the
store of knowledge he was so anxious to give to
the history of the earth, and his descriptions, monu-
ments of exactitude, of the fossil kinds of rhinoceros,
hya^nce, and of some of the great sloths, were

T92 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

the result of his careful examination of the living
species of the genera or families which were found
fossil. We owe to Cuvier the truth that ancient
forms of life, the bones and teeth of which alone
remain, and which were buried by nature formerly,
can be " restored." That is to say, by taking the
existing or modern example, and by reasoning
upon the nature of the teeth, claws, hoofs, and
horns present or absent, the nature, shape and
destiny of the ancient animal can be given to the
world at the present time.

After the abdication of Napoleon and the defeat
at Waterloo, it became necessary, in the ideas of
Louis XVI 1 1., that the universities should be re-
modelled, and a committee of public instruction was
created to exercise the powers formerly belonging
to the grand master, the council, and the treasurer
of the University. Cuvier was one of the com-
mittee, and was made chancellor of the University,
a position which he retained until his death under
most trying circumstances. No man did greater
or better and more lasting work for state education
than Cuvier. His heart was in the work of edu-
cation ; he had nothing but mental progress to
desire ; and it was a much more satisfactory thing
for France to have a renowned, scientific man at
the head of a great university, who, moreover,
really controlled the education of the country, than
to have had such important offices held by mere
politicians and soldiers.

In 1 8 17 Cuvier published a second edition of his

CUVIER. 193

'' Fossil Bones," and the great book, the " Regne
Animal " (the " Animal Kingdom "), was re-issued.
In this last work Cuvier immortalized himself; and
his classification has been of the greatest possible
value to his successors. He reduced the six classes
of animals which had been suggested by the
ancients and Linnaeus, namely, quadrupeds, birds,
reptiles, fishes, insects, and worms, to four, or
vertebrated animals (animals with backbones),
molluscous animals (such as snails and oysters),
articulated animals (insects and crabs), and radiated
animals (such as corals and sea anemones).
Although this classification has become modified,
still Cuvier gave the method of true classification
in animals. One or two points or peculiarities
were not to be considered at the expense of others
which belonged to organs of great importance to
the animal. He asserted that all the structures of
the animal must be studied, and physiology as
well as anatomy must be considered. The most
important structures must be considered first of
all, and the grand divisions of classification must
rest upon them. In the " Regne Animal " Cuvier
commences with man, whom he places in a genus
by himself, and recognizes only one species diversi-
fied by varieties or races. In 1818 Cuvier visited
London, and remained there for about six weeks,
receiving every scientific and social honour. He
mixed freely in scientific society, and was received
by George IV. On being consulted by his Majesty
about our national collections, he said that if all
I. O

194 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

the British private collections could be collected
into one, they would form a great national museum
which would surpass every other. Cuvier was
greatly interested in the freedom of English
politics ; and on the election for Westminster
taking place he went on to the hustings. He was
intensely amused at the speeches and the violence
of the mob, who pelted their political opponents
after the fashion of the day with bad eggs, dead
cats, cabbages, and mud. He went to Oxford, and
then all the party were invited to Windsor. Sir
Joseph Banks asked everybody in the scientific
world to meet Cuvier, and Sir Everard Home also.
The great naturalist, once a half-starved student
and a tutor, became the guest of the most honoured
amongst men, and was very sensible of the kind-
ness shown him. He could not, however, reconcile
himself to the long dinners and long sittings at
table, which were then, as now, fashionable in
England. Not only did Cuvier study the national
and private natural history, collections in this
country, but he also paid much attention to the
system of education and to the nature of our
political constitution.

Returning to Paris, Cuvier was elected a member
of the Academie Fran^aise, and in the following
year was made president of the Comit^ de
rinterieur, and created a baron. He resigned his
temporary grand mastership of the University, so
as to accept without salary the grand mastership
of the Faculties of Protestant Theology, and vice-
president of the Bible Society.

CUVIER. 195

In 1824, as president of the Comite, or one of
the councils of state, Ciivier took part in the coro-
nation of Charles X., on which occasion he was
made grand master of the Legion of Honour. In
1827 he was appointed censor of the press, an
office which his love of liberty of thought soon
made him resign. Sacrificing all his leisure to
the greater educational matters, and ever labouring
at science, Cuvier also formed a great library,
which was always open to naturalists who desired
to visit and use it. Cuvier's orderly and critical
mind enabled him to fulfil the office of secretary to
the institute with great success ; and he especially
shone in writing the interesting lives of the dis-
tinguished men who died during each year. More-
over, he reported on each memoir which was sub-
mitted to the institute for reading and publication.
Cuvier was great as a public lecturer, and had a
flexible and sonorous voice, which resounded far
and wide in the room. His audiences were always
enthusiastic ; and many a student waited long to
get a good seat before the professor began. He
taught, chalk in hand, and drew well on the black
board, his artistic power remaining to the last.

Cuvier came to England a second time, and it is
tolerably clear that it was to escape the inevitable
revolution which was caused by the tyranny of
Charles X. and his advisers. His carriage passed
out of Paris, and five hours afterwards firing began,
which led to the dethronement of the king and the
restoration of liberty. In London Cuvier used to

196 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

enjoy the political and other caricatures in the
shops, and loved to go down to such places as
Richmond to see the scenery.

After a six weeks' visit, Cuvier returned to Paris,
and occupied his former positions and dignities.

Cuvier was slightly built in his young days, and
moderately tall ; but the sedentary nature of his
work and his carelessness about taking proper
exercise, produced corpulence in his later years,
and his extreme near-sightedness brought on a
slight stoop in his shoulders. His hair had been
light in colour, and to the last it flowed in fine
curls over one of the noblest heads ever seen. He
was handsome and had regular features, with an
aquiline nose, a broad forehead, and keen eyes.
The love of order, which was his very peculiarity in
his work, was seen in little things, for Cuvier was
almost feminine in his attention to dress. He
even took in hand the costume of the University,
and designed the embroidery of his court suits.
Cuvier's manners were dignified and yet not cere-
monious ; for accustomed to mingle with the highest
of all classes and countries, and naturally desirous
of paying a just tribute of respect and good will to
everybody, he was likely to be generally polished
and courteous. He was stately enough sometimes,
and his reserve with strangers who were not open
with him was mainly — as is usually the case with
others — from mere shyness and timidity. To the
young he was always kind and sympathizing.
When at the Institute Cuvier's manner was always

CUVIER. 197

stately, for he was with his peers there, and perhaps
he might have occasionally felt it necessary to
retain an appearance of reserve during the some-
times not very scientific discussions of that mixed
assemblage.

Cuvier, notwithstanding his great patience when
he was at work, and his singular placidity when on
the face of a difficult point in natural history or
anatomy, was what is called a "Turk" at home,
and with others. Accustomed to most minute
exactitude, and to regulate his hands by his rapidly
working brain, he was singularly impatient with
other people who ^had to serve under him. He
used to hasten his workmen, so that his orders
were often performed with difficulty. He was hard
to bear with, and any waste of time the result of
carelessness, put him in a rage. Anything wrong
at table in his house, to be kept waiting, or some
trifling disobedience, would rouse an absurd amount
of anger. His irritability was excessive, and he
frequently forgot himself in his scoldings, and had
to make reparation afterwards. But he was always
ready to testify that he had been wrong, and to do
his best to make amends; nevertheless, he did not
improve in this particular, and he never had great
control over his feelings. No labour, however
minute and prolonged, irritated him when he be-
lieved that it was requisite for the attainment of
an object ; still he could not listen to a few pages
of a book which taught nothing, without expressing
himself very decidedly. From what has been

198 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

written of Cuvicr's domestic life, it could not have
been very enjoyable by those around him, and yet
it was the kind of life which has to be led by most
prominent men in science, art, and literature.
Work, everlasting work, with but little relaxation.
He certainly wasted no time. Before and after
breakfast he saw anybody who wished to have an
audience of him. By seven in the morning he was
dressed, and began preparing his day's work and
that of his assistants, so that by ten o'clock, when
he breakfasted, he had time to look at the news-
papers, to read correspondence, and look over any
particular works. After breakfast he dressed for the
day and began work. His carriage was punctual
to a moment, and no one was allowed to keep him
waiting. When the ladies were to accompany him,
they made a point of being as exact to time as was
possible ; and he seems to have enjoyed the sight
of his womankind rushing downstairs with their
shawls streaming after them and their gloves half
on their hands. The instant he had given his
orders he would thrust himself into a corner of the
carriage and set to work reading, but suffered the
ladies to talk as much as they pleased. The family
dinner hour was half-past six ; and if Cuvier had a
few moments to spare before that time, he would
occasionally join his friends in Madame Cuvier's
room, but more frequently he seems to have given
even this short time to study. One or two intimate
friends joined the circle at dinner, and then Cuvier's
conversation was delightful. On proceeding to the

CUVIER. 199

drawing-room Cuvler sometimes gratified his friends
by an hour's stay amongst them before he retired
to his occupation or his visits, but so untiring was
his industry, that he often set the whole party to
work aiding him in his researches. If he had any
foreign works he would often amuse his friends by
verifying the figures in them, one after the other.
It must be said that this everlasting work was
trying to people who were with Cuvier, for no
sooner did friends come to stay with him than he
began to use them in tracing drawings on paper.
He kept them at work, for when he returned from
his labours he generally asked for the tasks he had
thus set. Nevertheless, many found it a real
pleasure to work for him, for he was very grateful
for such assistance. Cuvier's hours of relaxation
were few. Change of employment afforded him
relief, and conversation still greater. At the close
of the day's labour, when he found it impossible to
work any longer, he was accustomed to throw him-
self on a sofa, hide his eyes from the light, and
listen to the reading of his wife or daughter, and
sometimes of his secretary, M. Laurillard. These
nightly readings lasted two hours, and thus Cuvier
became more or less acquainted with the current
literature and good works of the day. Very likely
he did not listen, and went to sleep, but that is not
stated of him by those who wrote his domestic
habits.

Cuvier was so downright that he did not like
any one who indulged in satire, or who ridiculed the

200 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

conduct of others. He never did this sort of thing,
and he carefully discouraged it in those about him,
even when embellished with sallies of wit and
drollery, and his rebukes to those who indulged in
sarcasm were accompanied by a sharpness of
expression generally very unusual to him. He
bore but little malice, and it is said that the annoy-
ances and disappointments of his public career left
no trace of bitterness of spirit ; and he was always
willing to lay the fault on the ignorance rather
than on the bad feeling of the offenders.

When in the full swing of his career, Cuvier
gave very interesting soirees on Saturday evenings,
and it is said that they were the most brilliant and
interesting meetings of their kind in Paris. They
were much frequented by the scientific world of
the time, and the rooms were as much open to the
prince as to the last young student who had just
begun to study natural history. In this society
Cuvier was an amusing conversationalist, a great
asker of questions ; and as he could talk well on a
variety of subjects, he made his guests at home,
and gave the meetings a character for freedom of
expression of opinion. A light repast concluded
the evening, and a select few remained to partake
of it. The chat was amusing, curiosities were
shown about, and the last anecdotes about
nature and the newest ideas were shown and
considered, and, reserving himself to |the last,
Cuvier would relate something that crowned
the whole ; and all around were struck by the

CUVIER. 201

occasional complete change given to the train of
thought, or were forced to join in a general shout
of laughter. The period of these brilliant soirees
was that of the prime of the lovely daughter who
was so fondly loved by Cuvier. A perfect lady, of
great grace and goodness, was Clementine Cuvier.
She was a highly-gifted girl, and her resemblance
to her father was remarkable. She had a delicate
constitution, and gradually faded away, dying of
rapid consumption at last amidst the joyful pre-
parations for her marriage. A great change then
took place in Cuvier, who mourned his daughter
greatly. Society was given up for a long time,
and when the evening meetings were resumed, the
life of them seemed to be gone, and the dejection
of Madame Cuvier added to the feeling. After the
death of his own daughter, Cuvier became more
than ever attached to his step-daughter, and his
care and anxiety on her account manifested itself
on all occasions. If she were ill he would be up
and down stairs over and over again, and worried
himself about even the most trivial symptoms.
Although so greatly occupied and so often absorbed
in scientific pursuits, he never neglected the oppor-
tunity of doing good in his way. His private
charities were large and well bestowed. His purse
was ever open to the needy and unfortunate of all
countries and stations, and the miserable inhabit-
ants of the dens of Paris and the modest student
struggling under adversity were alike the recipients
pf his bounty. Many hotels in the neighbour-

202 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

hood of the colleges and institutions had students
in them, living in the top stories, who were so
poor that they had to subscribe to get a book
or two between them. They would occasionally be
surprised by a visit from their great teacher. He
came to offer, with the greatest courtesy, the assist-
ance he knew they required ; and if they were ill
he did not rest satisfied until he had obtained
advice and nourishment for them. Himself keenly
alive to the slightest rudeness or neglect, and
grateful for the smallest proof of affection, he knew
how to give, not only with a liberal hand, but with
a delicacy which never wounded the most sensitive
temper. The year 1832 was a melancholy one for
Paris ; for political disturbances and cholera pre-
vailed. The disease raged around Cuvier's neigh-
bourhood, and he saw many cut off from it in the
midst of their youth and strength. At this time
he gave up his evening visits and the few relaxa-
tions he permitted himself to enjoy. Secluding
himself from society, except that of his own family,
he had no sooner performed his daily routine of
public duties than he returned to his studies with a
zeal and closeness of application that was doubtless
injurious to his health, though he himself said that
he had never worked with such enjoyment. On
Tuesday, May 8th, he opened the third and con-
cluding part of his course of lectures at the College
of France on the history of science, and it was his
last discourse. Strangely enough, it was as if it
were to be his last, so impressive, so grandly com-

CUVIER. 203

prehensive, was the diction ; and he treated the
subject in a manner which proved that he had been
thinking much about the mysterious and super-
natural environment which most men of great ex-
perience can recognize in nature. Cuvier in this
lecture dealt with the meaning of the changes
which had occurred on the surface of the earth in
relation to the succession of animals and plants
on the globe and the present creation. He stated
the manner in which he proposed to view ^the
present in relation to the past, a task which was to
lead his hearers, independently of narrow systems,
back to that supreme intelligence which rules,
enlightens, and vivifies, and which gives to every
creature the especial conditions of its existence.
He noticed how each being contains in itself an
infinite variety, an admirable arrangement for the
purposes for which it was intended : that each
being is good, perfect, and capable of life, accord-
ing to its order and species, and in its individuality.
He concluded by saying, "These will be the objects
of our future investigations, if time, health, and
strength are given to me to continue and to finish
them with you." The lecture hall was slowly left
by Cuvier's hearers and students, and an unde-
fined sadness seemed to weigh upon his late
hearers, who seemed to linger with the impression
that his days were numbered. On the evening of
the same day, Cuvier felt some pain in his right
arm, which was supposed to proceed from rheu-
matism. The next morning he presided over the

204 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Committee of the Interior with his usual ability
and activity ; but at dinner that day he felt some
difficulty in swallowing, and the numbness in the
arm increased. When he felt himself thus ill, in
order to take away the attention of Madame
Cuvicr, he said, " I must eat more soup," swallowing
bread even being impossible. Advice was sought,
but during the next day both arms became para-
lyzed, and the swallowing was worse. He made
his will with perfect calmness, and it evinced the
tenderest solicitude for those whose cares and affec-
tions had comforted his life, and for those who had
aided him most in his scientific labours. He could
not sign the will, but it was attested by four wit-
nesses. Convinced that all human skill was in
vain, he nevertheless submitted to treatment by
his medical men. Paralysis crept on, and the legs
were attacked, his speech was affected, and he
muttered, " It is the nerves of volition that are
affected." He spoke of his last lecture, and said
to a friend who called, " Behold a very different
person to the man of Tuesday ; nevertheless I had
great things still to do. All was ready in my
head, after thirty years of labour and research ;
there remained but to write, and now the hands
fail and carry with them the head." Cuvier
gradually sank, but kept his intelligence nearly to
the last. It was his wish to be buried privately, in-
terred in the cemetery of Pere le Chaise, under the
tombstone which covered his beloved child ; but
it was not possible to avoid the public demonstra-

CUVIER. 205

tion of respect. The funeral procession was fol-
lowed by the representatives of all the great learned
bodies of France.

Cuvier was too generous, and too desirous for
the advancement of his branch of natural history
knowledge, to die very rich. He had several
important sources of income, and there is no
doubt that, had he chosen so to do, he could have
saved much money. He spent largely when it
was necessary to procure specimens from abroad,
and to dig out fossils at home, and his private
charities were numerous. He only left about the
sum of four thousand pounds sterling, a library
worth about the same sum, and a house for his
family. There is no doubt that Cuvier was, in his
private life, a very estimable man, and that in his
public life he upheld the teachings of his conscience
to his disadvantage. It was to be expected that a
man whose work proved the great antiquity of the
kinds of animals now living on the surface of the
earth, and the existence of a great philosophy in
nature which linked the past and present animals
in a scheme which showed that life had been con-
tinuous for ages, would be abused and called an
atheist by some ignorant people or other. His
true character has been written as follows : — " He
promoted the cause of true religion by every means
in his power, both public and private ; he was a
warm supporter of the Bible Society, and caused
the Old and New Testaments to be widely dis-
seminated in every part of Protestant France,

206 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

In his letters to the heads of colleges and masters
of schools, he strongly recommended them to teach
for the love of God, himself pointing out their
duties according to that great rule. He adhered
consistently and persistently to the Protestant
faith, when it was well known that a change to
the Roman Catholic would have been the surest
step to the attainment of the highest honours in
the state. He caused a number of chapels to be
established, in order to give facility for attending
divine worship ; and he never would receive a
salary for attending and administering to the
interests of the Protestant religion. He discharged
faithfully all the duties of his office, with a zeal
which showed that he had a much higher motive
than that of gain or reputation. Humility and
forgiveness marked his character ; he was thankful
for the correction of errors ; he gloried as much
in the discoveries of another as his own ; and in
the triumph of joint labours, unhesitatingly gave
the preference to his colleague. He suffered his
servants to expostulate with him, and the very
nature of his amusements was social and cheerful.
He felt ingratitude keenly, and also unkindness
and injustice, but they made him sad rather than
angiy. His antagonists openly indulged in the
most irritating and violent taunts, or secretly
intrigued against him ; the former never excited
him beyond a clear, firm, and dignified reply,
wrung from him only when reply was absolutely
necessary ; and the latter nothing but candid

CUVIER. 207

remonstrances. To these high attributes we may
add charity. The failings of others were never
trumpeted forth by Cuvier ; he did not even
tolerate playful satire, however disguised by wit ;
his earnest desire was to make all happy around
him, even by a sacrifice of his own convenience ;
and his resignation was great, under calamities
which bereaved him of the dearest objects of his
affection ; all these things appear to establish his
character as a Christian."

The character of Cuvier was hardly equal to
this panegyric, for he held his own boldly enough,
and faced his enemies with no feeble humility ;
moreover, the details of his everyday life prove
that he was sufficiently exacting, and that every-
thing had to give way to his will. Nevertheless,
it is true that that will was to advance knowledge
in the right direction, and that it was stimulated
by an earnest desire for truth. Men like Cuvier
are very apt to be misunderstood by their most
intimate friends. When studying the collections
of animals, and when comparing the forms of
ancient and modern life, Cuvier mentally recognized
a divine wisdom and the work of the God he
worshipped. That was his worship, and he
probably cared all the less for the oratory of the
pulpit, which he was expected to listen to. He
was not a constant attendant at his church, and
this seems even to have afflicted his daughter when
on her deathbed, according to some reports. But
in all probability she knew her father's worth and

208 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

real religion, better than outside friends and de-
tractors, and prayed that he might receive that
support which alone could enable him to bear the
heaviest of sorrows with resignation.

Judging the man by his fruit and life, it must be
admitted that Cuvier was one of the greatest
students and teachers of nature that have lived, his
work, being true, lasts ; moreover, there is no
doubt that he had but few failings, and a great
amount of wisdom and virtue. Certainly he was
a staunch friend to religious education, and if one
could have known his heart, it is very possible that
his apparent ambition and desire of social great-
ness and position may have been influenced by the
knowledge that influence and dignity would further
his work both as an anatomist and zoologist, and
as a responsible promoter of education.

The lives of these heroes have been mainly
taken from the life of John Ray in the Ray
Society's publications, and from an excellent little
book, by an anonymous author, called " Cuvier
and Zoology," and from the " Memoires de
L' Academic des Sciences."

CHAPTER IX.

HEROES OF GEOLOGY.

The rise of the science which treats of the ancient history of the
earth — Students of the present changes, which are the examples
l)y which the past may be comprehended — The Greelis — The
life of Pythagoras ; a notice of the geology of Aristotcles —
Strabo's life — The nature of fossils and the life of Steno.

As was the case in the other branches of natural
history already noticed, the Greeks knew much
more about geology than did the nations of the
rest of Europe, subsequently, for nearly seventeen
hundred years. The first recorded teacher of the
ancient history of the earth was Pythagoras, who
was born on the island of Samos, about the year
570 B.C. By his mother's side he was connected
with the principal families of the island, and his
father appears to have been a Phoenician or a
Tyrrhenian of Lemnos. There is nothing known
about his childhood, and it is evident that he
studied under the great philosophers of his age in
Greece. But he wanted further information, and
I. r

2 10 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

therefore travelled into Egypt, and thence into
Chaldaea. Polycrates, the ruler of the island in
which Pythagoras was born, appears to have as-
sisted him with the Egyptians by introductions.
The traveller noticed i not only the habits and
customs of the people/ne visited, but also the aspect
of the countries, andVthe method by which nature
wore the earth, and produced changes on the surface
of the ground. He-Appears to have been much
struck with the periodical nature of many natural
events, such as the succession of the seasons, the
time of rain and inundation, and of great heat, and
of all the common examples with which everyone
is familiar at the present day. Returning home he
soon became aware that he could not teach, unre-
servedly, what he had learned and discovered
during his travels, for fear of Polycrates, and he
left the island. Finally he settled at Croton, in
southern Italy, and he appears to have chosen the
locality, in order to propagate his moral and
political, as well as scientific opinions. Unfortu-
nately, this ardent scholar and teacher did not write
any books, but left that task to his pupils and suc-
cessors, so that much good sense is mixed with much
nonsense in the so-called doctrines of Pythagoras
which came from them. Some of his opinions are
very remarkable and striking, and he introduced
into his own country the statements of the Eastern
nations, that there has been a gradual deterioration
of the human race from an original state of virtue
and happiness. But his principal work regarding

PYTHAGORAS. 211

the earth has descended to us through the poet Ovid,
and it is most interesting. Pythagoras insisted
that there was a perpetual and gradual system of
change, inherent in the earth. This idea, which came
into his mind from the results of observation, he
did not apply to very remote ages, or to what
is now called the ancient history of the globe.
He simply insisted on modern changes. Really
this limiting of his thought was in the true scientific
spirit, and he dealt with what was true and prove-
able so far as he was concerned. It might be
supposed that the present changes cannot come
within the studies of the geologist, but they really
do so, because, as will be noticed further on in con-
sidering the life of Hutton, the past history of the
earth can only be comprehended by studying the
present state of things. Pythagoras cleared the
way, and made a path for the geologist. He is said
by Ovid to have taught as follows : —

" Nothing perishes in this world, but things
simply vary and change their form. To be born
means simply that a thing begins to be some-
thing different from what it was before ; and
dying is ceasing from being the same things
Solid land has been converted into sea. Sea
has been changed into land ; marine shells lie
far distant from the deep, and the anchor has
been found on the summit of the hills. Valleys
have been excavated by running water, and floods
have washed down hills into the sea. Marshes
have become dry ground. Dry lands have changed

212 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

into stagnant pools. During earthquakes some
springs have been closed up, and new ones have
broken out. Rivers have deserted their channels,
and have been reborn elsewhere ; as the Erasinus,
in Greece, and Mysius, in Asia. The waters of
some rivers, formerly sweet, have become bitter, as
those of Anigrus, in Greece. Islands have become
connected with the main land, by the growth of
deltas and new deposits. Peninsulas have been
divided from the main land, and have become
islands, as Leucadia ; and according to tradition,
Sicily, the sea having carried away the isthmus.
Land has been submerged by earthquakes. The
Grecian cities of Helice and Burris, for example,
are to be seen under the sea, with their walls
inclined. Plains have been upheaved into hills by
the confined air seeking vent, as at Troezene, in the
Peloponnesus, There are streams which have a
petrifying power, and convert the substances which
they touch into marble. Volcano vents shift their
positions. There was a time when Etna was not a
burning mountain, and the time will come when
it will cease to burn ; whether it be that some
caverns be closed up by the movements of the
earth and others opened, or whether the fuel is
finally exhausted."

Of course there are several errors in these state-
ments, and especially those which relate to the
causes of volcanic vents are absurd. Pythagoras also
noticed the changes in the animal kingdoms, such
as the metamorphoses of insects. Besides being

PYTHAGORAS. 213

a naturalist this great man taught some most
extraordinary doctrines for his time of the world
and nation. He stated that virtue was with him
and his followers, a harmony, unity, and an en-
deavour to resemble the Deity. The whole life of
man should be an attempt to represent, on earth,
the beauty and harmony displayed in the order of
the universe. The mind should have the body and
the passions under perfect control ; the gods should
be worshipped by simple purifications and offerings,
and above all by sincerity and purity of heart.
Pythagoras, by his- good teaching and example,
established a great school of philosophy, which
influenced the world subsequently in a marked
manner. A political riot dispersed his followers,
and he died about 504 B.C.

A notice of the life of Aristoteles as botanist and
zoologist has already been given, and now a few
words must be said about the opinions held by this
very remarkable man regarding changes in the
earth. He progressed beyond Pythagoras, for he
refers to many examples of changes now constantly
going on, and insists, emphatically, on the great
results which they must produce in the lapse of
ages. The changes of the earth, he says, are so
slow in comparison to the duration of our lives, that
they are overlooked, and the migrations of people
after great catastrophes, and their removal to other
regions, cause the event to be forgotten. In one
work Aristoteles wrote : " The distribution of land
and sea, in particular regions, does not endure

214 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

throughout all time, but it becomes sea in those
parts where it was land, and again it becomes land
where it was sea ; and there is reason for thinking
that these changes take place according to a certain
system and within a certain period. Everything
changes in the course of time."

There was a great geographer called Strabo, about
whose life little is known, except that he travelled
far and wide in Europe and North Africa, and wrote
largely on the earth. He did not content himself
with simple geography, however, for he entered into
a discussion, which was a very common one in those
days, as it has been since, concerning the nature of
the fossil shells which are found in strata or layers
of the earth remote from the sea. He attributed
the collecting of the shells where they are found
to the former subsidence of the land, and not to
the rising of the sea. It is not, he said, because
the lands covered by seas were originally at different
altitudes, that the waters have risen or subsided or
receded from some parts and inundated others, but
the reason is, that the same land is sometimes
raised up and sometimes depressed, so that it either
overflows or returns to its own place again. We
must therefore ascribe the cause to the ground,
either to that ground which is under the sea or to
that which becomes flooded by it, but rather to that
which lies beneath the sea, for this is more moveable,
and on account of its humidity can be altered with
greater celerity. This philosopher clearly laid down
the law that the general level of the sea has re-

STRABO. 21$

mained the same, but that it has been and is the
land which has been or is upheaved or subsided. It
is a fundamental truth on which much of the science
of geology depends. He moreover asserted that
volcanoes were safety-valves, and were the result
of subterranean convulsions.

These were the principal writers which in-
fluenced geology in the days before the Christian
era, and it is to be noticed that they did not treat
of the construction of the rocks, of the succession of
the layers or strata, or of much concerning the
ancient history of the globe. But they taught,
wisely and admirably, the nature of modern
changes, and believed that these and the older ones
they could comprehend, were part of a scheme, and
were produced by natural causes, in the course of
events.

Aristoteles, Strabo, and Plinius wrote about the
changes which were progressing on the surface of
the earth, and compared them, in their reasoning,
with changes they presumed had been, but still no
great advance was made.

In the early part of the sixteenth century a
remarkable discussion sprang up about the nature
of shells and bones, which were found in layers of
earth remote from the sea. The celebrated painter
Leonardo da Vinci had seen some of these fossils
during his youth, when he planned and carried out
some important canals in the north of Italy. He
laughed at the fancies of the day about the shells,
for some people said that they were made by the

2l6 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Stars, and others that they were brought forth
naturally, in the layers of earth in which they
were found. He wanted to know where the things
were being made in the hills, by the stars, at the
present time, and stated that, like the rounded
stones of gravel, the shells had been in the sea, and
that they were of different ages and kinds, and
were once alive. But the former living condition
of fossils, and the possibility of their being under-
stood, by comparing them with recent or living
things, was, perhaps, most strongly put by Steno,
a Dane.

In 1638, a goldsmith, Steno by name, living at
Copenhagen, who was a tradesman of the King
Christian IV. of Denmark, had a son. The young
Nicholas was brought up carefully, evidently was
well educated, and was destined for the medical
profession. A strict Lutheran, he naturally went
to Holland for a part of his education, and studied
at Leyden under the very distinguished anatomists
there, after he had taken his degree. Nothing is
known about his person or habits, but the results
of his constant labour prove him to have been a
most industrious student, and also an investigator
of the human frame in his early days of manhood.
At first the medical profession was everything to
him, and he studied human anatomy and physi-
ology with great success, making some important
and interesting discoveries. He discovered the
duct or channel by which the saliva runs into the
mouth from the salivary gland beneath the skin on

STENO. 217

the cheek, and in 1664 he published some researches
on the manner in which the chick is nourished in
the Ggg. Moreover, he examined the structures of
the eye of the calf, the nature of the mucous secre-
tion, and wrote on the heart. While engaged in
these researches at Amsterdam, he heard of the
death of his mother, and returned to Copenhagen.
After a short stay there, he set out for Italy, taking
France on his way ; and he began a series of re-
searches on the structure of the brain at Paris in
1664. Here a great change occurred, which in-
fluenced his future life in a remarkable degree.
Steno, well known then as a successful investigator,
came under the notice of a great French geographer,
Thevenot, and, what was more important, became
the friend of Bossuet, one of the greatest preachers
and teachers the Roman Catholic Church has ever
produced. Steno was so influenced by Bossuet,
that he became converted to the Roman Catholic
faith, and left the Lutheran Church. Going sub-
sequently into Italy, Steno pursued his studies, and
settled in Florence, in 1667, being well received by
the Grand Duke Ferdinand II. de Medici. In spite
of the somewhat natural jealousy of the medical
men of the city, Steno was appointed physician to
the Grand Duke, and prosecuted his anatomical
studies under his influence. Then he came across
a subject which directed his attention to geology,
or rather to that part of the science which relates
to extinct animals. In a letter to Thevenot, Steno
describes the dissection of a shark which had been

2l8 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

captured off Leghorn in 1666, and especially dis-
cussed the mode of growth of the teeth of the
animal. At this time many fossils were picked up
and gathered out of layers or strata, which were
called by many curious names, and believed to be
anything but what they really were. They were
distinguished by Steno at once as shark's teeth,
and he insisted that sharks lived during the former
ages of the globe, and that they had become
entombed in the deposits which were then forming
a stratum or layer of earth, the result of deposition
in water, being the burial-ground of the time of its
collection or formation.

Fossils were thus shown by Steno to be mineral-
ized or petrified organic remains, and he gave the
hint or method to future investigators, that the
example of the existing animals must be taken, in
order to learn the nature of those creatures whose
remains are more or less perfectly preserved in the
fossil condition.

Following out this subject, Steno wrote on the
manner in which deposits accumulate, and accumu-
lated in past ages ; and he concluded that if we
found a deposit containing sea-salt and the remains
of marine animals, planks of ships etc., we should
believe that the sea had once been there, whether
the bed was exposed in consequence of the sea
having retired, or because the land had been
raised. He showed that although the lowest beds
deposited over any area, must conform to the shape
of the underlying rock, the tendency of all sediment

STENO. 2 19

must be to occupy the horizontal position ; and so
when we find them highly inclined, as in moun-
tains, for instance, we must refer this to subsequent
movement. He noticed that mountains are made
up both of horizontal and inclined strata, as may
be seen along their flanks. He infers that moun-
tains were once not in existence, and that they do
not grow, but that their regions are raised and
depressed and subject to rending and Assuring.
Steno clearly showed that the land had sunk and
had been again elevated in the geological ages, and
in considering the causes he seems to have grasped
the idea that the internal heat of the earth be-
coming less, the mass cools, and that the movements
on the surface have had to do with the cooling.
His most important work was removing fossils out
of the category of marvels, sports of nature, and as
things which grew in the earth, to the proper truth
that they are preserved parts of animals and plants
which were formerly alive. In 1688, Steno was
appointed to the chair of anatomy at Copenhagen ;
but he had to suffer from jealousy, and doubtless
some religious persecution influenced his desire to
leave his native country and to return to Florence
again. This he did, and Cosmo HI. entrusted him
with the education of his son. Steno then began
to give up science and to study theology, and wrote
several works on the subject by which he hoped to
convert his old natural history friends. One of
these involved him in a controversy with the
reformed clergy of Jena. The Pope, Innocent XL,

220

HEROES OF SCIENCE.

rewarded Steno in 1677, by making him a bishop
and apostolic vicar of Northern Europe. Steno
went to reside at Hanover ; but he had to leave,
and returning to Schwerin, he died there. His
body was, at the request of the Grand Duke
Cosmo, carried back to Tuscany in 1687.

CHAPTER X.

THE LIFE Ox^ HUTTON.

The rise of the modern school of geology — The continuity of the
operations of nature and their sameness — The necessity of
studying the existing state of things in order to comprehend
the past — The denial of catastrophes — Hutton's theory of the
earth the foundation of scientific geology.

Many facts had been recorded regarding the
ancient history of the earth, and a host of ideas,
more or less absurd, had been given forth on
geology, during the years which preceded and
followed the reformation. Several Italian geolo-
gists had examined into the truths discovered by
Pythagoras, and, as stated in the preceding pages,
the nature of fossils had become understood by a
few liberal minded men. The age of Newton, and
the years which followed his time, were consumed,
however, so far as the history of the earth was
concerned, by vain attempts to form cosmogonies,
to account for the origin of the globe and visible
universe. There was also a fierce struggle between

222 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

two great geological factions, one asserting that all
rocks were the product of heat, and the other
denying tliis in toto and deciding that water was
the originator. Many, and indeed nearly all, geolo-
gists taught that nature had acted during the past,
by fits and starts, and that great convulsions had
occurred, bringing the earth at last to its present
condition. The common sense of mankind was
opposed to many of these beliefs, and there was
moreover a very great indisposition, on the part of
many educated men, to credit that the earth was
more than six thousand years old. Not a few
believed that the hills and dales, mountains and
plains, cliffs and valleys, were first formed as they
are now.

A Scottish gentleman, a quiet retiring man, having
some means of his own, studied the structure of
the rocks and taught himself physical geography.
He mastered a great number of undoubted facts,
and reasoned upon them, and produced a theory
which made geology a science, instead of a jumble
of guesses flavoured with the love of the marvellous.

James Hutton was the son of William Hutton, a
merchant living in Edinburgh, and was born in that
city on the 3rd of June, 1726. His father, a man
highly respected for his good sense and integrity,
and who had held the important office of city
treasurer, died whilst the boy was young. The
mother was a woman of considerable ability, and
she determined that her child should have a good
education. He went, consequently, to the High

HUTTON. 223

School, and subsequently was entered at the Uni-
versity at the early age of fourteen. James was a
thorough student, and loved work, and his tastes
were directed rather to natural science than to
classics and the higher mathematics. He studied
mathematics under Maclaurin, and used to say
in after years that although he enjoyed Professor
Stevenson's teaching of logic, still he thought
more of him because a hint that was given in a
lecture led him to take a passionate interest in
chemistry. The fact that gold is dissolved in
aqua regia (a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric
acids), and that two acids, which can each of them
dissolve any of the baser metals, must unite their
strength before they can attack the most precious,
was mentioned by the professor, in illustration of
some general doctrine. Hutton was much im-
pressed with this fact, and was led to study it
further, and he got all the books on the subject.
This led to his love of chemistry, which never for-
sook him, and which really decided the course
of his career. But Hutton was destined for a
profession, and his mother did not intend him to
occupy himself solely with science. Consequently
he was articled to a writer to the signet, with a
view of becoming a lawyer. He had hard work to
do, and plenty of it ; it was mere routine work,
that of a clerk, and there was a possibility that he
would forget his scientific pleasures. His desire
for knowledge persisted, in spite of his monotonous
work, and occasionally he endeavoured to teach

224 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

his fellow clerks a little, and he was found amusing
himself and them with chemical experiments, when
he should have been copying papers or studying
the forms of legal proceedings. His master soon
saw that the young man's mind was not that which
W'Ould suit a lawyer, so, with much kindness and
good sense, he released his young friend from his
obligations. Young Hutton at once began to study
medicine, as that science which was the most closely
allied to chemistry. He attended lectures, and
studied well from 1744 to 1747. Then, as the
teaching at Edinburgh was not sufficient in all the
parts of medical studies, he went, as was usual, to
Paris, where he studied chemistry and anatomy
with great ardour. He was there for nearly two
years, and then went to Leyden, in Holland, where
he took his degree in September, 1749. On his
return to London at the end of that year, he began
to think seriously about settling in the world.
Edinburgh afforded no flattering prospect for his
establishment as a physician. The business there
was in the hands of a few eminent practitioners,
who had been long established ; so that no opening
was left for a young man whose merit was yet
unknown, who had no powerful connections to
assist him on his first outset, and very little of that
patient and circumspect activity by which a medical
man pushes himself forward in the world.

Full of anxiety about the future, Hutton wrote
to a friend of his own age on the subject. This
was Mr. James Davie, with whom Hutton had been

HUTTON. 225

on most intimate terms before leaving Scotland.
They had both a great love of chemistry, and had
experimented together, especially on the nature
and production of ammonia. Their experiments
had led to some valuable discoveries, and had been
pursued by Mr. Davie during his friend's absence.
They had afforded a reasonable expectation of
establishing a profitable manufacture of some salt
of ammonia from coal-soot. The project of this
establishment was communicated by Mr. Davie to
his friend, who was still in London, and it appears
to have lessened his anxiety about settling as a
physician, and, probably, was one of the main
causes of his laying aside all thoughts of that
profession. Perhaps, too, on a nearer view, he did
not find that the practice of medicine would afford
him that leisure for pursuing chemical and other
scientific objects which he fancied it would do, when
he saw things at a greater distance. In fact,
Hutton found himself in the same position as many
other men of genius who have pursued as success-
fully the peculiar studies requisite for an accom-
plished medical man. Anatomy, physiology,
chemistry, and botany have often been much more
attractive to the aspirant for medical fame than
surgery, practical medicine, and the study of drugs
and their uses. Many a good doctor has been
spoiled by over-education, and science has gainfed
an enthusiastic student. It would appear, however,
that there was another cause which was influencinsf
Hutton. He had inherited a little property in land
I. Q

226 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

in Berwickshire from his father ; it was possible to
live on it, and farm and work at chemistry without
risk, whilst if he sold it, or used the rent*" in
advancing his position as a medical man, he might
fail after all.

Certain it is that he returned to Edinburgh, and
in the summer of 1750 he abandoned his intention
of practising, and resolved to apply himself to
agriculture. He had as a friend Sir John Hall, of
Dunglass, a man of ingenuity and taste for science,
and also an agriculturist. As he was never destined
to do anything by halves, Hutton determined to
study farming in the school which was then
reckoned the best, and the manner which is
undoubtedly the most effectual. He went into
Norfolk, and fixed his residence for some time in
that county, living in the house of a farmer, who
served both for his landlord and his instructor.
This he did in 1752. He always spoke well of
John Dybold, who made him comfortable, and
whose practical lessons in husbandry he much
valued. He appears, indeed, to have enjoyed this
situation very much : the simple and plain cha-
racter of the society with which he mingled, suited
well with his own, and the peasants of Norfolk
could find nothing in the stranger to set them at
a distance from him, or to make them treat him
with reserve. It was always true of Dr. Hutton
that to an ordinary man he appeared to be an
ordinary man ; possessing a little more spirit and
liveliness, perhaps, than it is usual to meet with.

HUTTON. 227

He enjoyed Norfolk life very much, and doubtless
it was the very different soil of that county which
made the young Scotchman think, for the first time,
about the construction of the surface of the earth
which he hoped to till and profit by. While his
head quarters were thus established in Norfolk, he
made journeys, on foot, into different parts of Eng-
land ; and though the main object of them was to
obtain information in agriculture, yet he never
passed a pit, or a cliff, or a river-side, without study-
ing the' structure of the soil, so that in 1/53, Hut-
ton was incontinently making himself a geologist,
a pursuit which his knowledge of chemistry and
mineralogy rendered easy to him. What agriculture
he learned in Norfolk was of the greatest use to
him, and he visited Flanders to learn more. He
travelled from Rotterdam through Holland, Bra-
bant, Flanders, and Picardy, and was highly
delighted with the cultivation of the small holdings
of those countries. Though his principal object in
this excursion was to acquire information in the
practice of husbandry, he appears to have paid
much attention to the mineralogy of the countries
through which he passed. Then he returned and
took up his own farm in Berwickshire, bringing
with him a Norfolk ploughman. He set to work
and farmed, using every known improvement, and
he has the credit of being one of those who intro-
duced the new husbandry into a country where
it has since made more rapid advances than in
any other part of Great Britain. From 1754 to

228 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

1768 he resided on his farm, visiting Edinburgh
occasionally. He seems to have led a tranquil
country life, succeeding as a farmer ; and yet there
was, during all this time, a slow yet progressive
growth of a science in his mind. Cautious, perse-
vering, observant, and truly logical in his method
of thought, Hutton was accumulating facts upon
which to reason in geology, whilst the so-called
geologists of the day were forming theories without
facts. He took a tour to the north of Scotland,
through Ross and Caithness, and returned by way
of Aberdeen to Edinburgh, and he studied the
mineralogy and geology of the districts. Returning
home, he still went on farming, and at the same
time he became a partner with his friend Davie in
a manufactory of ammonia. By the year 1768,
being forty-two years of age, Hutton had matured
his plans ; he let his farm at a very advantageous
rent, and, untroubled about his affairs, having his
three sisters as his companions, he went to Edin-
burgh, and entered the singularly interesting scien-
tific society of that time. His biographer. Play-
fair, writes that Hutton, "employed in maturing
his views and studying nature with unwearied
application, now passed his time most usefully
and agreeably to himself, but in silence and obscu-
rity with respect to the world." "Free from the
interruption of professional avocations, he enjoyed
the entire command of his own time, and had
sufficient energy of mind to afford himself continual
occupation." A good deal of his leisure was now

HUTTON. 229

employed In the prosecution of chemical experi-
ments. In one of these he made an interesting
discovery which relates to the changes that go on
in apparently most unchangeable rocks, and which
are due to the action of percolating water on them.
He noticed that in the midst of dense masses of
hard, cold, volcanic rock, called basalt, crystals of
great beauty are found in cavities. They can be
fused under the blowpipe easily, and that is not
the case with the surrounding rock. On adding
hydrochloric acid to one of these zeolites, as they
are called, a gelatinous substance is formed out of
the crystal, and on evaporation, sea salt or chloride
of sodium is found. "This was the first instance,"
writes his biographer, Playfair, "of an alkali
being found in a stony body." He went to Cheshire
to see the salt mines, went to Birmingham, and
then set out for Wales. His desire was to trace
the hard gravel of granular quartz which is found
in such abundance in the soil about Birmingham
and elsewhere, to its origin, and to find out whence
it came and how it was distributed. He found
none of the- rock in Wales ; but on returning he
found it in places, in a body of old rocks which
stand out of the country between Bromsgrove and
Birmingham.

Then Hutton wrote a little book on the "Nature,
Quality, and Distinction of Culm and Coal." The
result was more economical than scientific, for it
led to the abolition of a duty on the small coal of
Scotland. He read hard, and Qvery book on travels

/"

230 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

which referred to physical geography was carefully
studied, so that at last no man of the age was so
fit to deal with the great problem he had been
revolving in his mind for thirty years. All his
studies of nature, all his examinations of the
surface of the earth, were with a view of ascer-
taining the changes that have taken place on its
surface, and of discovering the causes by which
they have been produced. He was impressed with
the belief that the former changes in the earth's
surface have been of the same kind as those now
in progress ; that the ancient history of the earth
could only be studied by taking the example of
modern changes, and that the past could be studied
from the present, because there was uniformity and
constancy and law in nature. The same energies
and forces have always been and have acted by law
in much the same manner as at the present time.
With his true scientific spirit Hutton would have
nothing to do with convulsions or with the origin
of the globe ; he did not want to guess or speculate,
but to argue logically on facts which anybody could
observe. He took geology out of the age of the
marvellous and laid the foundations of the present
aspect of the science. He was in no hurry to
publish his views, possibly because his temperament
was cautious, and possibly he was aware what a
furious fuss there would be made about it ; how
he would be abused, scolded, and anathematized.
There is no doubt that the lights of the age and
public opinion were perfectly incompetent to judge

HUTTON. 231

the merits of such a theory ; they were sunken in
prejudices, and resisted any change of opinion.
He was aware that a great outcry would be made
by men whose reHgious opinions were his own, and
whom he respected greatly. In fact, the world, just
before the appearance of Hutton's " Theory of the
Earth," was less prepared for it than ordinary
opinion was for the doctrines of Charles Darwin
one hundred years afterwards. The appearance
of the work of this last great naturalist made, and
is still making, a great stir, but that of Hutton's
work was received, as he anticipated, with incredible
opposition, by the teachers of the day; and its
slow acceptation by the scientific world was remark-
able. No abuse could efface its effects ; it was
true, and the true alone lasts ; it was reasonable,
and it was to the glory of God.

In this book, geology was, for the first time,
declared to be in no way concerned about the
origin of things. It was the first in which an
attempt was made to dispense entirely with all
hypothetical causes, and to explain the former
changes of the earth's crust by reference exclusively
to such natural agents as still exist. Hutton
laboured to give fixed principles to geology, as
Newton had succeeded in doing to astronomy.
He wrote : " The ruins of an older world are visible
in the present structure of our planet, and the
strata which now compose our continents, have
been once beneath the sea, and were formed out of
the waste of pre-existing continents. The same

232 HEROES OF SCIENCE

forces are still destroying, by chemical decompo-
sition or mechanical violence, even the hardest
rocks, transporting the materials to the sea,
where they are spread out and form strata ana-
logous to those of more ancient date. Although
loosely deposited along the bottom of the ocean,
they become afterwards altered and consolidated
by volcanic heat, and then turned up, fractured,
and contorted." He showed that many hard
crystalline rocks, such as basalt, were of igneous
origin, and that some of them had been injected
in a melted state through fissures in the older
strata. He proved, by examining Glen Tilt,
that granite was once in a state of fusion, and
had cooled. He wrote : " In the economy of the
world I can find no traces of a beginning, no
prospect of an end," a declaration all the more
startling when coupled with the doctrine that
all changes on the globe had been brought
about by the slow agency of existing causes.
Sir Charles Lyell, writing on this, stated, " The
imagination was first fatigued and overpowered
by endeavouring to conceive the immensity of
time required for the annihilation of whole con-
tinents by so insensible a process ; and when
the thoughts had wandered through these inter-
mediate periods, no resting place was assigned
in the remotest distance. The oldest rocks were
represented to be of a derivative nature, the last
of an antecedent series, and that, perhaps, of one
of many pre-existing worlds."

HUTTON. 233

Most unfairly was Hutton attacked, and he was
thus defended by his friend Playfair : " In the
planetary motions, where geometry has carried the
eye so far, both into the future and the past, we
discover no mark either of the commencement or
termination of the present order. It is unrea-
sonable, indeed, to suppose that such marks should
anywhere exist. The Author of nature has not
given laws to the universe, which, like the constitu-
tions of men, carry in themselves the elements of
their own destruction. He has not permitted in
his works any symptom of infancy or of old age,
or any sign by which we may estimate either their
future or their past duration. He may put an end,
as He no doubt gave a beginning, to the present
system at some determinate period of time ; but
we may rest assured that this great catastrophe
will not be brought about by the laws now ex-
isting, and that it will not be indicated by anything
which we perceive."

Hutton studied meteorology, and gave to the
world the first reasonable theory of the cause of
rain. He described the formation of invisible
vapour by evaporation, the production of visible
mist and cloud, and finally rain. And he investi-
gated the reasons of the cause of rainfalls differing
in amount in the tropics and temperate zones of
the earth. In 1793 serious illness attacked Hutton
after he had been writing his speculations regard-
ing matter. On his recovery he republished his
work on the " Theory of the Earth," and replied

234 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

to many of the attacks upon it, and later on wrote
a work which was not published in the " Elements
of Agriculture." Illness again seized him, and he
died in 1797.

Hutton was such an observer of facts that he
rarely read any books of a theoretical nature, and
he never would concede anything to mere authority.
He was indefatigable in study, and wrote largely,
expressing his thoughts constantly with his pen.
He rose late, and began to study at once, and until
early dinner. He rarely dined from home, and
was a most sparing eater, and he drank no wine.
After dinner he resumed his studies, or, if the
weather was fine, walked for two or three hours,
when he could not be said to give up study,
though he might, perhaps, change the object of it.
He rarely departed from this kind of life, except
when he was travelling. To his friends his con-
versation was inestimable ; as great talents, the
most perfect candour, and the utmost simplicity of
character and manners, all united to stamp a value
upon it. His slender, active figure, thin counte-
nance, high forehead, and somewhat aquiline nose,
gave him the appearance of being acute and
vigorous in body and mind. He was full of ardour
and enthusiasm, gay and humorous, and most
forcible in argument. The man's simplicity, deter-
mination, and desire for truth, his carelessness of
the opinion of men, and his great regard for his
fellow labourers who were not led away by preju-
dice and authority, were his great characteristics.

HUTTON. 235

Hutton founded geology as a logical science ; and
although he was ignorant of the succession of the
forms of life on the globe, yet his method of
studying the past from the present has been, and
still is used as the way in which the extinct animals
and plants can be comprehended in the scheme of
nature. Hutton's works were carefully studied by,
and in after years they were the mainspring of the
toil of Lyell.

There is a very interesting notice of the life of
this great man in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
by Professor Geikie, and in an essay by Playfair
in the " Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh " to which the author of this memoir is
indebted.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SMITH.

The succession of the strata recognized — Strata known by their
fossils, position, and mineral contents — England surveyed by
Smith and made the type of the results of the succession of
changes studied by geology.

The ancestors of William Smith were a race of
farmers who owned small tracts of land, and had
been settled in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire
for many generations.

William Smith was born at Churchill, a village
in Oxfordshire, on the 23rd of March, 1769, the
year which gave birth to Cuvier. Of his parents
he always spoke with great regard, but there is
little in the recollections which he has preserved of
them, to show in what degree they contributed to
form his remarkable character. His father he
described as " a very ingenious mechanic," and men-
tions as the cause of his death a severe cold caught
while engaged in the erection of some machinery.
Deprived of this parent before he was eight years

WILLIAM SMITH. 23/

old, it was fortunate for him that his mother
was a woman of ability, of gentle and charitable
disposition, and attentive to the education of her
children. An expressive pencil sketch and a cha-
racteristic description, both from memory, record
his devotion to his mother.

According to his own account, however, not only
were the means of his instruction at the village
school very limited, but they were in some degree
interfered with by his own wandering and musing
habits. The rural games in those " merrie daies "
of England might sometimes attract the wayward
and comparatively unrestrained scholar from his
books ; but he was more frequently learning of
another mistress, and forming, for after-life, a habit
of close and curious contemplation of nature.

After his father's death and his mother's second
marriage, the person to whom he was principally
to look up to for protection, was his father's eldest
brother, to a portion of whose property he was
heir. From this kinsman, who was but little
pleased with his nephew's love of collecting the
'* pundibs " * and " poundstones," or " quoit-
stones,"! and had no sympathies with his fancies of
carving sun-dials on the soft brown " oven-stone " J
of the neighbourhood, he with great difficulty
wrung, by repeated entreaty, money for the pur-
chase of a few books fit to instruct a boy in the

* Terebratulae.

t A large Echinite {Clypetis sitiuatus of Leske), not unfrequently
employed as a "pound-weight " by the dairywomen.
% Named from its frec^uent use in the construction of ovens.

238 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

rudiments of geometry and surveying. But the
practical farmer was better satisfied when the
youth manifested an intelligent interest in the pro-
cesses of draining and improving land ; and there
is no doubt that young William profited in after-
life by the experience, if it may be so called, which
he gathered in his boyhood while accompanying
his relative (" old William ") over his lands at Over
Norton.

Whatever he saw, was remembered for ever. To
the latest hours of life he retained a clear and
complete recollection of almost every event of his
boyhood and often interested young and old by
his vivid pictures of what he had seen when a
child. These notices would be swelled to an un-
reasonable degree by introducing the pleasant
stories of " the narrative old man ; " but the fol-
lowing recollections, written in his seventieth year,
of events which had passed fifty-six years before,
are worth preserving as evidence of this peculiar
circumstantiality of memory.

"I was early a tall and strong-grown boy, and in
my way to London, between twelve and thirteen
years of age, I particularly noticed the great work
of cutting down the chalk hill at Henley-upon-
Thames, and how the loaded carriages on an in-
clined plane were made to bring up the empty ones.

" I was in London shortly after the riots of Lord
George Gordon ; and at the time when news of
Rodney's defeat of the French fleet arrived.

" There was then a halfpenny toll for foot-

WILLIAM SMITH. 239

persons passing over Blackfriars Bridge ; the
Albion Mills (worked by steam power) had just
before been burnt down.

" Criminals were hanged at Tyburn, where there
were cow-houses with wood seats on top for persons
to see the executions.

" From Manchester Square to the Edgeware
Road and Paddington, there were footpaths
entirely across open fields. The buildings on the
side of the square were unfinished ; but, as more
connected with what relates to the earth, I saw how
the ground was made in Manchester Square, for a
poor fellow, in turning his cartload of slush, had
let his horse and cart slip down, so that he was up
to his middle in mud, endeavouring to extricate his
horse just as I passed by. This was on the east
side of the square."

In 1783, and from this time to 1787, the young
man, without instruction or sympathy, prosecuted
irregularly, but with ardour and success, the studies
to which his mind was awakened. He began to
draw, attempted to colour, became tolerably versed
in the geometry and calculations then thought
sufficient for engineers and surveyors, and by these
acquirements, at the age of eighteen, so strongly
recommended himself to Mr. Edward Webb, of
Stow-on-the-Wold, who had been invited to make
a complete survey of the parish of Churchill, for
the purpose of enclosure, that he became assistant
to that most able and excellent man, and was taken
into his family.

240 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

This was the critical moment ; from this event
flowed all the current of his useful life, and to
the same origin may be ascribed many of the pecu-
liar habits and feelings, the contrasted lights and
shades, which diversified his character.

Edward Webb was, like his pupil, self-taught,
and very slightly acquainted with languages and
general literature, but possessed of great ingenuity
and skill in mechanics, mensuration, logarithms,
algebra and fluxions. His practice as a surveyor
included many things now conceded to the engineer,
such as the determination of the forces of water,
and planning machinery. His instruments were
commonly invented, often made and divided by
himself; peculiar pentagraphs, theodolites, scales,
and even compasses and field books, of new con-
struction enriched the ofiice at Stow, and stimulated
the young men who were fortunate enough to be
placed in it, to thought and exertion. " I admired,"
says the subject of this memoir, " the talent of my
master, his placid and ever unruffled temper, and
his willingness to let me get on, for I required no
teaching."

Speedily entrusted with the management of all
the ordinary business of a surveyor, Mr. Smith
traversed, in continual activity, the oolitic lands of
Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, the lias clays and
red marls of Warwickshire; visited (1788) the
Salperton tunnel on the Thames and Severn
Canal, and (1790) examined the soils and circum-
stances connected with a boring for coal in the

WILLIAM SMITH. 24 1

New Forest, opposite the Shoe alehouse at Plait-
ford. All the varieties of soil, in so many surveys
in different districts, were particularly noticed, and
compared with the general aspect and character
of the country, and the agricultural and com-
mercial appropriations. The arrangement of the
lias limestone beds in Warwickshire contrasted with
the neighbouring red marls at Inkborough, the
boring for coal in some dark lias clays on the road
to Warwick, the absence of arenaceous beds from
the limestones of Churchill — these were some of
the points treasured in a mind capable of combining
them at a future time.

In 1793 we find him engaged in executing
surveys and complete systems of levelling, for the
line of a proposed canal. In the course of the
operations which he performed in the summer and
autumn, a speculation which had come into his
mind regarding a general law affecting the strata
of the district, was submitted to proof and con-
firmed. He had supposed that the strata lying
above the coal were not laid horizontally, but in-
clined ; that they were all inclined in one direction,
viz., the eastward, so as to successively terminate at
the surface, and thus to " resemble, on a large scale,
the ordinary appearance of superposed slices of
bread and butter." This supposition was now
proved to be correct by the levelling processes
executed in two parallel valleys, for in each of the
levelled lines the strata of " red ground," " lias,"
and " freestone " (afterwards called " oolite "), came
I. R

242 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

down in an eastern direction and sunk below the
level, and yielded place to the next in succession.

But at the same time it was known to Mr. Smith
that the position of the strata of coal in Somerset-
shire was not generally conformed to that of the
" re<d earth " " lias," and other beds above ; the
same thing was proved to him by an inspection of
the colliery at Bucklechurch, in Gloucestershire ; he
knew besides that the great faults which divide all
the coal strata underground, were in general found
not to divide any of the superincumbent rocks
which formed the surface.

Geologists who, at the present time, notwith-
standing the devoted attention which has been paid
to the phenomena of local displacement, find a
difficulty in understanding the causes, may imagine
the perplexity in the mind of a discoverer. Mr.
Smith felt this perplexity severely, but not long.
The Canal Bill, on which he was engaged, received
the sanction of Parliament in 1794; and one of
the first steps taken by the judicious committee of
management was to depute two members of their
body to accompany Mr. Smith, "their engineer,"
on a tour of inquiry and observation regarding the
construction, management, and trade of other
navigations in England and Wales.

The tour extended altogether nine hundred miles,
and occupied between one and two months ; by
one route the party reached Newcastle, and by
another returned, through Shropshire and Wales to
Bath. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Perkins were gentle-

WILLIAM SMITH. 243

men well acquainted with coal-working, and they
willingly stayed to inspect every new invention
applied to canals and collieries ; but Mr. Smith's
treasured object of consideration on the road, that
which occupied all his thoughts in the intervals of
professional inquiries, was the aspect and structure
of the country passed through, in order to deter-
mine if his preconceived generalizations of a settled
order of succession, continuity of range at the
surface, and general declination eastward, were true
on a large scale.

It is needless now to say that his general views
were justified ; he found the strata from the vicinity
of Bath and Bristol prolonged into the north of
England, in the same general order of succession
with the general eastward dip. There is, however,
one part of the conclusions adopted in this rapid
survey from a postchaise, which merits particular
attention. He passed through York on the high
road to Newcastle, and saw at a distance of from
five to fifteen miles to the east the hills of chalk
and oolite. He was satisfied of their nature by
their contours and relative position, and by their
position on the surface in relation to the lias and
" red ground " occasionally seen on the road. This
is, in fact, the only authority he could rely upon for
drawing, in 1800, the continuations of the chalk of
Wiltshire, and the oolite of Somersetshire, through
the eastern parts of Yorkshire, but he drew them
with a considerable approximation to accuracy.
Engaged for six years in setting out and super-

244 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

intending the works on the Somersetshire Coal
Canal, Mr. Smith found but few opportunities of
making known to scientific persons, the peculiar
generalizations which had taken possession of his
mind. But in the execution of these works he
was putting his thoughts into practice, informing
the contractors what would be the nature of the
ground to be cut through, what parts of the canal
would require unusual care to be kept water-tight,
what was the most advantageous system of work.
Another singular advantage attended this engage-
ment. The notions which up to this time he had
obtained regarding the distribution of organic
remains were comparatively vague. He found
peculiar plants in the " clift " above the coal, par-
ticular shells in the lias and oolites, but none in
the red ground, and he had combined these simple
facts so far as to see that " each stratum had been
successively the bed of the sea, and contained in
it the mineralized monuments of the races of
organic beings then in existence." But it was the
necessity of possessing an accurate knowledge of
the different sorts of rock, sand, and clay, which
were to be cut through on the line of the canal,
which led him to examine minutely and scrupu-
lously into the distribution of the " fossils " which
he had been in the habit of collecting. The result
was a proposition which he proved to be locally
true, and of practical value, and which has now
a world-wide application, " that each stratum con-
tained organized fossils peculiar to itself, and might,

WILLIAM SMITH. 245

ill cases otherwise doubtful, be recognized and
discriminated from others like it, but in a different
part of the series, by examination of them." In
other words, he discovered that strata are to be
recognized by their fossils. He now remarked also
the contrast between the rounded state and mixed
condition of the fossils which lay in gravel deposits
and the sharply preserved specimens lying in
natural associations in the strata, and thus acquired
a notion of the distinction between what were after-
wards named diluvial and stratified deposits.

The possessor of all these generalizations, now
(1795) twenty-six years of age, was still shrouded
in the obscure village of High Littleton, but in
this year he removed to Bath, and took up his
abode in the central house of a short range of
buildings called the Cottage Crescent, which occu-
pied a picturesque and elevated site south of that
city. " From this point," says he, " the eye roved
anxiously over the interesting expanse which ex-
tended before me to the Sugar-loaf mountain in
Monmouthshire, and embraced all in the vicinities
of Bath and Bristol. Then did a thousand thoughts
occur to me, respecting the geology of that and
adjacent districts continually under my eye, which
have never been reduced to writing." He continued
to direct all the operations on the Somerset Coal
Canal, and very copious note-books attest the
constancy and exactitude of his attention to that
occupation. To this cause, indeed, may be ascribed
the extreme rarity of any essays, or even memo-

246 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

randa, from which the progress of his geological
studies can be gathered.

That in January, 1796, he had begun to commit
his thoughts to paper, in a lucid arrangement for
publication, the written proofs remain. In 1797 he
drew a larger general plan for such a work ; but
not till 1799, after his engagement ceased with the
Coal Canal Company, did he make public his
intention to compose a general work on the strati-
fication of Britain, or enter on the prosecution of
an actual survey of the geological structure of the
whole of England and Wales.

In the execution of the canal, Mr. Smith had
found the means of applying his newly acquired
knowledge to useful practical problems, such as
how to draw the line through a country full of
porous rocks, so as best to retain the limited supplies
of water which frequent mills left to the navigation,
where to place bridges on a good foundation, how
to intercept and conduct the springs, and where to
open quarries of proper stone. We find him also
engaged, as early as 1796, in the short intervals
which could be snatched from the main business
before him, in putting to practical proof his theo-
retical views of the earth's structure and the pro-
perties of the mixed calcareous and argillaceous
strata in the hills near Bath, by a new and successful
process of land-draining.

The earliest connected remarks which have been
found, bear the date of January, 1796, and relate
to organic remains and their distribution in the

WILLIAM SMITH. 247

different strata. The vicinity of Bath is rich in
fossils, and fine collections were formed there
previous to Mr. Smith's researches. It might be
after inspecting some of these treasures, whose full
value was so entirely unknown to their owners, that
the following reflections, which strikingly illustrate
the enlarged state of his own views at that period,
were penned : —

"Dunkerton, Swan, Jan. 5, 1796.

" Fossils have been long studied as great curi-
osities, collected with great pains, treasured with
great and at a great expense, and shown and
admired with as much pleasure as a child's hobby-
horse is shown and admired by himself and his
playfellows, because it is pretty ; and this has
been done by thousands who have never paid the
least regard to that ivonderfid order and regu-
larity with which nature has disposed of these
singidar prodtictions, and assigned to each class its
peculiar stratum.^'

Gifted in a very uncommon degree with that
philosophical faith in the generality and harmony
of natural laws which is a characteristic of dis-
coveries in natural science, Mr. Smith was at the
same time remarkably disinclined to indulge in
himself, or even to tolerate in others, mere specu-
lations in geology. Whatever of this nature he
found in the circle of his reading, was severely
judged by a close collocation of the hypothesis
which had been advanced with the phenomena of
stratification which he had entirely established.

248 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

These judgments might be erroneous in cases
which required the knowledge of other data, not
then collected, for a true and general solution ; but
the very unreasonableness of raising the standard
of his own discoveries in a limited region, for con-
demning a speculation perhaps founded on other
truths occurring elsewhere, shows how firmly these
discoveries, and the influences belonging to them,
were established and fortified in his mind. The
following passage, written in January, 1796, might
have been acknowledged by the author to contain
his real opinions forty years later : —

" Therefore every man of prudence and obser-
vation who has paid the strictest attention to
mineralogy, the structure of the earth, and the
changes it has undergone, will be very cautious
how he sets about to invent a system which nature
cannot conform to without having recourse to
subterraneous fires, volcanic eruptions, or un-
common convulsions, by which every hill and dale
must have been formed and every rock must
have been rent to form those chasms, which,
in comparison to the strata they are found in, are
no more than sun-cracks in a clod of clay ; yet
such has been the language of ingenious men, who
have set their theoretical worlds a-going without
either tooth or pinion of nature's mechanism
belonging to them."

In October and November of this year (1796),
we find him returning to the contemplation of
organic remains ; discussing the circumstances

WILLIAM SMITH. 249

which attend the sparry substance occupying the
place of the shell, which has been removed, in the
lias, and the empty cavity, where the shell was,
surrounding a loose stony cast of the interior, in
the freestone (oolite).

That his mind was now actively employed in
tracing out the bearings of the extensive subject
before him, will be evident from the following
extract, dated August, 1797 : —

^^ Locality of plants^ iiisects, birds , etc.^ arises from
the nature of the strata.

" Where art has not diverted the order of things
and nature is left to herself, a considerable locality
may be observed in many animals and vegetables
as well as mineral productions, by which they
evidently attached to particular soils to such a
degree that, if this subject were studied with
attention, it would form one of the principal
external characteristics of the strata underneath.
Though it may seem mysterious to some, that birds,
beasts, insects, etc., which have the liberty of roving
at pleasure, should feel any particular attachment
for this or that soil, yet the wonder ceases when we
consider how the chain of natural things is linked
together, and how these creatures are taught to
cull their food from insects that are lodged in, or
seeds that are produced from, particular plants
that grow upon particular soils."

Smith had seen layers of limestone crowded with
shells succeeded by others containing corals. He
found ammonites and oysters in some, and insect

250 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

remains in others, and his speculations assumed
the curious phase of the sentences just noticed.
But he soon became aware that accident had much
to do with the presence of certain organic remains
in strata, and that, whilst some fossils, like corals,
once lived where they are now preserved in strata,
others were carried there as the deposit collected.

A manuscript, dated December 2, 1796, Dunker-
ton. Swan Inn, headed "Strata in general, and
their position," and evidently intended for publica-
tion, commences thus : —

" The strata being found as regular on one side
of a rivulet, river, deep valley or channel as on the
other, over an extent of many miles, when proper
allowance is made for the inclination, and for the
variation of the surface, is it not reasonable to
suppose that the same strata may be found as
regular on one side of the sea or ocean as on
opposite sides of a deep valley upon land, and if
so, and the continuation of the strata is general,
what is their general direction or drift ? Is it in
straight lines from pole to pole, or in curved lines
surrounding the globe regularly inclined to the
east > "

After hinting at a general cause for such an
assumed regularity, he adds, " But all theories are
best built on practical rules, which will enable any
one to make such observations for himself as must
carry conviction along with them ; for a work so
novel as this must expect to find some who will
hardly believe what is plain to be seen ; for all

WILLIAM SMITH. 2^1

men do not see alike, nor can patiently trudge
through the dirt to search for truth among the
stubborn rocks where nature has best displayed
her. . . . Shall, therefore, describe a number of
quarries, cliffs, etc., at a great distance, etc. See
Book "

In what seems to be the continuation of this
paper, we see the predominant desire of the author
to establish the certainty and generality of the
inclination of strata, which he had proved on a
limited scale near Bath.

" If the strata lay horizontal, every part of the
sea-shore would present the same beds at the
water edge instead of that wonderful variety
which is found on the coast and banks of every
river and rivulet in the kingdom, especially those
that run in an east and west direction, or nearly so.
In such situations the young mineralogist may
soon be convinced of that wonderful regularity
which nature has adopted, especially if the shores
are rocky ; he will there find that, independent of
partial and local dips which appear in different
quarries of the same stone, the outlines, or top and
bottom layers of each complete stratum or class
of stones or earth, considered as a mass, have a
general tendency towards the eastern horizon."

By the term " dip " is meant the inclination that
strata make with the horizon. Mr. W. Smith
constantly brought forward his well worked out
fact that the strata of England dip from west to
east more or less. The oldest strata come to thq

252 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

surface in Wales and the lake districts, and because
they were upheaved the newer strata were tilted
and curved, and the slope is to the east.

In February, 1798, we find as part of the intro-
duction to this contemplated work, an interesting
notice of some of the steps by which the author
was conducted to his general conclusions.

"It will be readily admitted by all classes of
men, from the most accurate observers of nature
to the simplest peasant, that there is some degree
of regularity in the strata from whence our build-
ing materials are generally collected. Masons,
miners, and quarrymen can identify particular beds
of stone dug many miles apart ; indeed, every cliff
and quarry presents a true section of a great many
beds of stone, which may be found of the same
quality and in the same position in all or most of
the neighbouring cliffs and quarries. And this
regularity is nowhere more conspicuous than in the
lias quarries of Somersetshire, from whence these
observations first took their rise, about seven years
since.

" For the stratification of stone struck me, who
had not been accustomed to such appearances, as
something very uncommon, and till I had learned
the technical terms of the strata, and made a
subterraneous journey or two, I could not conceive
a clear idea of what seemed so familiar to the
colliers ; but when these difficulties were sur-
mounted, and an intelligent bailiff accompanied
me, I was much pleased with my peregrinations

WILLIAM SMITH. 2$ 3

below, and soon learnt enough of the order of the
strata to describe on a plan the manner of working
the coal in the lands I was then surveying.

" Being engaged soon after to survey the lands
and take the levels of a canal that was proposed
to be made from the collieries to Bath, I observed
a variation of the strata on the same line of level,
and soon found that the lias rock, which about
three miles back was full three hundred feet above
this line, was now thirty feet below it, and became
the bed of the river, and in that direction did not
appear any more at the surface. This induced me
to note the inclination of the same rock, which I
knew was to be found at the head of two other
valleys lying each about a mile distant from, and
in a parallel direction to, the one just described,
and accordingly found it to dip the same to the
south-east, and sink under the rivers in a similar
manner.

" From this I began to consider that other strata
might also have some general inclination as well
as this (though I had been frequently told by the
colliers that there was no regularity in the strata
above ground), yet, by tracing them through the
country some miles, I found the inclination of
every bed to be nearly the same as [that of] the
lias ; and notwithstanding the partial and local
dips of many quarries which varied from this rule,
I was thoroughly satisfied by these observations
that everything had a general tendency to the
south-east, and thence concluded there could be

254 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

none of these beds to the north-west, the truth of
which conjecture was soon verified by a tour of
observation through the northern parts of this
kingdom."

In March, 1798, Mr. Smith purchased a small
but beautiful estate, in a deep valley, within three
miles of Bath, almost overgrown with wild wood,
hiding in its bosom a sheet of water and a small
mill. Through this retired possession the canal
was cut, without greatly injuring its remarkable
beauty ; and, under Mr. Smith's fond and tasteful
attention the scene was partly cleared, the pond
expanded to a lake, the cottage became a com-
fortable home, in which he passed many happy and
thoughtful hours. He did not, however, at any
time reside long in this favourite retreat, but took
up his station for about a year at the village of
Mitford, near Bath, and engaged in the last duties
which he performed as resident engineer to the
Coal Canal.

Owing to a misunderstanding with the Company,
this occupation ceased in June, 1799, and Mr. Smith
felt and acknowledged that a new era in his life
had arrived. He was not only at liberty, but
placed under the necessity to consider the best
means of making known his geological system,
and of founding upon it a professional practice,
which might provide the expense of travelling
to verify and extend his knowledge, and fill up
the outline of a geological map of England and
Wales.

WILLIAM SMITH. 255

In these objects, which were ever closely associ-
ated in his own mind, he was successful ; the most
valuable portions of his discoveries soon became
public property, and he quickly acquired extensive
employment in the practical applications of these
discoveries to mineral surveying and draining of
land on a large scale. The extensive diffusion of
his fame and opinions, which now began, was
owing to no actual and authorized publication, but
to continual discussions and explorations with
several active friends, oral communications and ex-
hibitions of maps at agricultural meetings (then
frequent), and circulation of manuscript copies of
tabular expositions of the series of strata at that
time determined.

His views at this epoch appear by the following
notice : —

"During my five years' close confinement to
practical engineering on the Coal Canal, my much-
wished-for opportunity of collecting observations
enough from the ranges of the different strata to
make an accurate delineation of the stratification
throughout England were suspended.

" I had seen enough by my tour of August, 1794,
to satisfy myself of the practicability of doing it,
and often wasted much time in poring over maps,
in contriving how the ranging edges and planes of
different strata could best be rendered intelligible :
models were thought of, and one small map was
cut along the edges of some of the strata with a
view of defining their extent, and of showing

256 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

how one stratum was successively covered by
another.

" I drew in colours, on a map of the vicinity of
Bath, and on 'Day and Masters' county survey,'
all [that had been observed] very accurately to a
certain extent, which embraced an interesting but
intricate variety of strata in hills around Bath ; and
some small maps of England were spoiled by
speculating on the ranges of stratification without
sufficient data. The intricacies in their marginal
edges were such that I found, to mark point by
point, as the facts were ascertained, was the only
way in which I could safely proceed.

" My experience in what I had done upon the
Somersetshire map was sufficient to convince me
that to make a map of the strata on a scale as
large as Gary's England (five miles to an inch),
with sufficient accuracy, much of it should first be
drawn on a larger scale."

It was fortunate for Mr. Smith, and for the pro-
gress of his views, that he gained at this time the
friendship of a man singularly competent to esti-
mate the truth and value of these views, and both
able and willing to advocate the merit of their
author. The Rev. Benjamin Richardson was at
this time living in Bath, and possessed a choice
collection of local fossils, mostly gathered by his
own diligent hands. Extensively versed in natural
history, and generally well acquainted with the
progress of science, he was perfectly enthusiastic in
following out, and liberal in enabling others to

WILLIAM SMITH. 257

prosecute, new and ingenious researches, especially
if they tended to practical and public good. He
knew accurately the country in which Mr. Smith
had principally worked, and was acquainted with
the views entertained on the subject of fossils, which
had been recorded in books, or were adopted by
the collectors, who were even then celebrated in
the vicinity of Bath. He had no knowledge of the
laws of stratification and the connection between
the forms of organic life and the order of super-
position of the strata ; while, on the other hand,
his new friend had very little knowledge of the
true nature of these organic forms, and their exact
relation to analogous living types. The result of
a meeting between two such reciprocally adjusted
minds was an electric combination ; the fossils
which the one possessed were marshalled in the
order of strata by the other, until they all found
their appropriate places, and the arrangement of
the cabinet became a true copy of nature.

That such fossils had been found, in such rocks,
was immediately acknowledged by Mr. Richardson
to be true, though the connection had not before
presented itself to his mind ; but when Mr. Smith
added the assurance, that everywhere throughout
this district, and to considerable distances around,
it was a general law that the ^^ smne strata were
found ahvays in the same order of superposition
and contained the same peculiar fossils,^' his friend
was both astonished and incredulous. He immedi-
ately acceded to Mr. Smith's proposal for under-

I. S

258 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

taking some field examinations to determine the
truth of these assertions, and having interested in
the object a new and learned associate, the Rev.
Joseph Townsend (author of " Travels in Spain "),
they at once executed the project. Among other
places visited with this view was the detached hill
on which Dundry Church is conspicuously elevated.
From its form and position in respect of the lias
of Keynsham, Mr. Smith had inferred that this hill
was capped by the lowest of the Bath " freestones "
(inferior oolite) ; and, from his general views, he
expected to find in that rock the fossils which the
freestones contained near Bath ; that is to say, on
the westward rise, which he believed to affect all
the strata near Bath above the coal. It is needless
now to say, that examination confirmed both the
inference of the character of the rock and the con-
formity of its organic contents. The effect of this
and other illustrations of the reality of Mr. Smith's
speculations was decisive. In general literature,
and especially in natural history, Mr. Smith was
immeasurably surpassed by his friends, but they
acknowledged that, from his labours in a different
quarter, a new light had begun to manifest itself
in the previously dark horizon of geology, and
they set themselves earnestly to make way for its
auspicious influence.

What a step was made from the old ideas that
fossils were sports of nature to the proof that
during the long ages of the earth's history every
deposit of river mud, sea-shore sand, and marine

WILLIAM SMITH. 259

collection contained relics of its age of accumu-
lation ; and that there has been a succession of
animals and plants on the earth foreshadowing
those that now exist.

One day, after dining together at the house of
the Rev. Joseph Townsend, it was proposed by
one of this triumvirate, that a tabular view of the
main features of the subject, as it had been ex-
pounded by Mr. Smith, and verified and enriched
by their joint labours, should be drawn up in writ-
ing. Richardson held the pen, and wrote down,
from Smith's dictation, the different strata accord-
ing to their order of succession in descending order,
commencing with the chalk, and numbered, in
continuous series, down to the coal, below which
the strata were not sufficiently determined, accord-
ing to the scheme already noticed.

To this description of the strata was added, in
the proper places, a list of the most remarkable
fossils which had been gathered in the several
layers of rock. The names of these fossils were
principally supplied by Mr. Richardson, and are
such as were then, and for a long time afterwards,
familiarly employed in the many collections near
Bath. Of the document thus jointly arranged each
person present took a copy, under no stipulation as
to the use which should be made of it, and accord-
ingly it was extensively distributed, and remained
for a long period the type and authority for the
descriptions and order of superposition of the strata
near Bath.

260 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Years rolled on, and Smith's wanderings over
England and their results were laid down by him
on a map, which was to be published. With regard
to this map of the strata, it may be said that it was
very trying work for the publisher as well as the
author. The basis of the map, as already explained,
was in many respects peculiar ; the colouring of it
was more so. Instead of ih^flat colouring ending
in narrow defined edges usually employed for maps,
Mr. Smith introduced a peculiar style of full tints
for the edges of the strata, softened into the paler
tint employed for the remainder of the area which
they occupied on the surface. This new style of
colouring gave a picturesque effect to the map, but
required more than usual skill and patience to be
correctly executed, and occasioned great trouble in
examining the copies. The colouring of the map
was thus rendered more expensive than had been
anticipated, and notwithstanding the labour was well
paid for, it was not always at first properly per-
formed.

At length the difficulties inseparable from such
a task were so far overcome, and this enormous
labour was so far completed, that a coloured map
of the strata of England and Wales was submitted
to the consideration of the Society of Arts, sup-
ported by various testimonials of its general ac-
curacy and value, in April and May, 1815. The
result was the award of the premium of £^0, which
had been in vain offered for very many years for a
work of this description — a reward which Mr,

WILLIAM SMITH. 26j

Smith might have claimed long ago, had not an
honest desire to produce his work complete with-
held the attempt. The map was published on the
1st of August, 1815, dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks,
and from that hour the fame of its author as a
great original discoverer in English geology was
secured. Would that this epoch of his revived and
enlarged reputation had also been the dawn of
more prosperous fortunes, or that, satisfied with the
degree in which he had accomplished his gigantic
task, he had left to others the completion of his
work, and devoted himself for a time to even the
humblest of those professional labours by which
he had been at least supported through oppressive
difficulties, and by which he must have already
grown comparatively rich but for the incessant
drain of money in following up discoveries which
no living man could reasonably hope to complete.

Science, indeed, is a mistress whose golden smiles
are not often lavished on poor and enthusiastic
suitors. The time for a strenuous exertion was
indeed come. Geology had kept him poor by con-
suming all his professional gains ; the neglect of
his employers too often left these unpaid ; in such
a condition one unfortunate step was ruin, and that
step was made. On the property which he had
purchased near Bath, and which he had greatly
improved, he was tempted to lay a railway for
bringing the freestone of Comb down to the Coal
Canal, to open new quarries of this stone, and to
establish new machinery for cutting and shaping

262 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

it for buildings. The project, which looked well at
first, failed utterly by the unexpected deficiency of
the stone, on whose good quality the whole success
depended. The abandonment of this cherished
scheme was followed by the compulsory sale of the
still more cherished property, a load of debt re-
mained to be discharged, and the miserable effects
fell heavily on others besides himself. But there
were not wanting persons of station, knowledge,
and humanity, who, esteeming Mr. Smith and ad-
miring his solitary and ceaseless industry, exerted
themselves to save him from the sad fate which
seemed to await him.

Such things are common in the lives of men, but
they arc not often encountered by so resolved and
patient a spirit as that of Mr. Smith. One who
saw the struggle may boldly say this, because there
can be no other motive for mentioning private and
personal griefs but to show forth the character of
the mind which could firmly bear and overcome
them. As a mean of reducing his difficulties he
proposed to sell that geological collection which
had been so much prized, and through the as-
sistance of some friends a communication was
opened with the Treasury. Two gentlemen being
deputed to examine the collection, reported favour-
ably, and their lordships were pleased to authorize
the purchase, in order that the specimens might be
fitted up in the British Museum. There was also
some defined notion of engaging Mr. Smith's ser-
vices at the museum to take charge of and explain

WILLIAM SMITH. 263

the geological principles which this collection was
intended to illustrate ; but this project came to
nothing.

In the winter of 1818-19, Mr. Smith revisited,
after an absence of ten years, his native village, re-
examined the unforgotten localities where in child-
hood his " pundibs " and " poundstones " were
gathered, and collected " marlstone " fossils from an
excavation at Churchill Mill, nearly at the same
points where he had noticed them in 1787. In
one whose life had been one long wandering, and
who had earned for himself an immortal name,
this return to the haunts of his childhood and the
simplicity of village occupations, must have excited
many interesting reflections. He had sold his patri-
mony, and what had been the modest dwelling of
his ancestors for two hundred years ; he had dis-
bursed in travelling for what he deemed a public
object all that he had earned ; while one of his two
brothers, quietly prosecuting trade in his native
village, had grown a rich and prosperous man.

In the autumn of 18 19 Mr. Smith gave up his
house in London, after fifteen years' occupation,
and was compelled to submit to the sale of his
furniture, collections, and books, preserving in fact,
only his papers, maps, sections and other drawings,
through the kindness of a most faithful friend.
While this happened, he was in Yorkshire busily
engaged, apparently oblivious, perhaps sternly re-
gardless, of what seemed to others an insupportable
misfortune. He deemed it an inevitable corollary

264 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

to his irretrievable losses in the unlucky speculation
already mentioned near Bath, and armed himself
with what seemed more than fortitude to meet it.

One more used to monetary arrangements would
have foreseen and averted this occurrence ; but on
the practical geologist the blow fell with stunning
effect. He surrendered with deep regret his interest
in the much-loved and really valuable little pro-
perty near Bath, quitted London, and consented
to have no home. From this time for seven years
he became a wanderer in the north of England,
rarely visiting London, except when drawn thither
by the professional engagements which still, even
in his loneliest retirements, were pressed upon him,
and yielded him an irregular, contracted, and
fluctuating income.

In the winter of 1819-20, Mr. Smith, having
perhaps more than usual leisure, undertook to walk
from Lincolnshire into Oxfordshire. The object
proposed was to pass along a particular line
through the counties of Rutland, Northampton,
Bedford, and Oxford, but the ultimate destination
was Swindon, in Wiltshire.

"Leaving the great road at Colsterworth, with
some reflections on the birthplace of Newton,* we
crossed in a day's easy walk, the little county of
Rutland, its hills of oolite and sand, its slopes of
upper lias, and its valleys often showing marl-
stone, and reached the obscure village of Gretton,
on the edge of Rockingham Forest. Whatever

* Written by his biographer.

WILLIAM SMITH. 265

may now be the accommodations at this village,
they were very wretched in 18 19 (December), but
the odd stories of supernatural beings and incre-
dible frights which were narrated by the villagers
assembled at the little inn, greatly amused Mr.
Smith, and reminded him of exactly parallel tales
which circulated around Whichwood Forest in his
boyhood.

" The next morning we walked to Kettering,
noticing on the road the peculiar characters of
the Northamptonshire oolite. In this walk Mr.
Smith had somehow sprained or over-fatigued him-
self, and he chose to proceed to Wellingborough
in a chaise. From this point, situated on sand of
the oolite series, we resumed our geological pro-
ceedings on foot, and passing by Irchester, Wool-
aston, and Boziate, traversed in the next hills the
oolite, the forest marble, the cornbrash, and an
outlier of Kelloway's rock. The road up Boziate
Hill was mantled with fossiliferous stone, some of
which, obtained from the hill-top, was believed to
be Kelloway's rock, and was found to contain
Ammonites sublcBvis and other fossils. A fine
specimen of this ammonite was here laid by a par-
ticular tree on the road side, as it was large and
inconvenient for the pocket, according to a custom
often observed by Mr. Smith, whose memory for
localities was so exact, that he has often, after
many years, gone direct to some hoard of this
nature, to recover his fossils. This road, however,
over Boziate Hill, he was not to travel again.

266 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

" From Olney to Buckingham the route was per-
formed in chaise. The stone dug here in clay-
attracted much attention, and Mr. Smith doubted
whether to rank it as forest marble or cornbrash.
We now crossed the oolitic country to Aynhoe,
celebrated for its fossils, on foot ; next day con-
tinued the walk to Deddington, Chapelhouse, and
Churchill, and after a few days walked to Burford,
and then travelled in the ordinary way to Swindon,
Oxford, and London. In passing through Oxford,
Mr. Smith, for the first time in his life, had the
pleasure of seeing Professor Buckland, at the house
of Mr. Bliss, the bookseller, with whom he walked
over Shotover Hill, on his way toward London."

This little tour is thus briefly narrated, becau5^
it appears in all respects a fair example of the
usual way in which Mr. Smith explored the
country, walking when the object he had in view
required this mode of examination, travelling as
fast as possible in all other cases, but always
recording in note-books or on maps, the obser-
vations he made.

Up in the north of England on the east coast
Smith loved to wander beneath the cliffs, noting
the minutest variations in the stratification, detect-
ing the slightest marks of dislocation, watching the
peculiarities of the sea's action on materials of
unlike qualities, and inferring the causes which
had anciently modified the outline of the land,
and covered the low cliffs of the oolitic series with
fragments of the lias from Whitby, of the coal and

WILLIAM SMITH. 267

limestone from Teesdale or Swaledale, and of the
granite and syenite from the Shap Fells and Car-
rock Pike. In numerous papers dedicated to the
local geology of Scarborough, his reflections on
these subjects are recorded ; his exertions in
examining one curious case of dislocation on the
north side of the Castle Hill, brought on rheumatic,
or rather a paralytic affection of the muscles of the
lower extremities, which bound him a prisoner in
bed in the early part of 1825.

Previous to this accident, he had taken part in a
course of lectures to the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Hull ; after it had occurred, and before
its effects were removed, while yet he was incapable
of walking, and was actually lifted into the carriage
which took him away, he accepted and executed a
similar engagement proposed by the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Sheffield. It was a sin-
gular spectacle, to witness the delivery of lectures
which required continual reference to large maps
and numerous diagrams, by a man who could not
stand, but was forced to read his address from a
chair, to an audience of several hundred persons
in a room not very well adapted for the voice.
But it was far more extraordinary to witness
during all the severity of the disorder, the unpre-
tending patience and fortitude of the sufferer, who,
had he then permitted his mind to dwell too
curiously on the state of his health and the state
of his finances, might have added the bitter fore-
taste of want and privation to the actual difficulty

268 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

of the moment. Such reflections and such antici-
pations might sadden the hearts of those who
surrounded him, but Mr. Smith would have thought
it unworthy of his resolved mind and firm trust in
Providence, to have abated one jot of his accus-
tomed cheerfulness, shortened one of the innumer-
able playful stories which were always springing
to his lips from the rich treasure-house of his
memory, or turned his meditations from his
favourite subjects.

At Sheffield, while slowly recovering the use of
his limbs, he busied himself in arranging a body of
information which he had gathered concerning the
neighbouring coal districts ; and on removing soon
afterwards to his old quarters at Doncaster, he
worked much on the large " Old Survey of York-
shire," thinking to complete the colouring of it.
By degrees he recovered entirely from his painful
disorder, and from this year (1825) to 1839, nothing
of the kind ever affected him again.

But these years were fruitful of events interesting
to the friends of William Smith. In February,
183 1, the Council of the Geological Society of
London honoured him by awarding to him the first
Wollaston medal ; and the terms with which the
gift was accompanied render this act on the part
of the society and the president extremely memor-
able. Dr. WoUaston's services to physical science
were well known and duly honoured in his life-
time ; geology has felt, and will long feel the
benefit of his dying bequest. He invested one

WILLIAM SMITH. 269

thousand pounds in the three per cent. Reduced
Bank Annuities, in the joint names of himself and
the Geological Society, and directed that after his
decease, "the society should apply the dividends
in promoting researches concerning the mineral
structure of the earth, or in rewarding those by
whom such researches should hereafter be made ;
or in such manner as should appear to the Council
of the said society for the time being, conducive
to the interests of the society in particular, or the
science of geology in general." He afterwards
enjoined the society " not to hoard the dividends
parsimoniously, but to expend them liberally, and,
as far as might be, annually, in furthering the
objects of the trust." The first year's income from
this fund was appropriated to the acquisition of a die
for a medal bearing the head of Dr. Wollaston, and
this having been undertaken by Mr. Wyon, the
society was prepared in 1831 to fulfil the trust with
which they were charged. The council accordingly
passed unanimously the following resolutions, Jan.
II, 1831:—

"I. That a medal of fine gold, bearing the im-
press of the head of Dr. Wollaston, and not ex-
ceeding the value of ten guineas, be procured with
the least possible delay.

" 2. That the first Wollaston medal be given to
Mr. William Smith, in consideration of his being a
great original discoverer in English geology ; and
especially for his having been the first, in this
country, to discover and to teach the identification

2/0 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

of strata, and to determine their succession by
means of their imbedded fossils."

The announcement of this award was made by a
congenial spirit. The chair of the Geological Society
was then filled by one of its most honoured members,
an original thinker and faithful observer, well quali-
fied to appreciate the originality of Mr. Smith's
discoveries, and well acquainted by actual research
with their extent and their value. In his address
on this occasion. Professor Sedgwick, speaking in
the name of the Geological Society, sketched a
brief but satisfactory history of Mr. Smith's career,
demonstrated the entire justice of the award of the
Council of the Geological Society, and added his
personal testimony in favour of Mr. Smith's claims
in terms of no ordinary value.

" I for one can speak with gratitude of the
practical lessons I have received from Mr. Smith.
It was by tracking his footsteps, with his maps in
my hand, through Wiltshire and the neighbouring
counties, where he had trodden nearly thirty years
before, that I first learned the subdivisions of our
oolitic series, and apprehended the meaning of
those arbitrary and somewhat uncouth terms, which
we derive from him as our master, which have long
become engrafted into the conventional language
of English geologists, and through their influence
have been, in part, also adopted by the naturalists
of the continent.

" After such a statement, gentlemen, I have a
right to speak boldly, and to demand your appro-

WILLIAM SMITH. 27 1

bation of the councirs award. I could almost dare
to wish that stern lover of truth, to whose bounty
we owe the " Donation Fund," that dark eye, before
the glance of which all false pretensions withered,
were once more amongst us. And if it be denied
us to hope that a spirit like that of Wollaston
should often be embodied on the earth, I would
appeal to those intelligent men who form the
strength and ornament of this society, whether
there was any place for doubt or hesitation }
whether we were not compelled, by every motive
which the judgment can approve and the heart can
sanction, to perform this act of filial duty, before
we thought of the claims of any other man, and
to place our first honour on the brow of the father
of English geology ?

"If, in the pride of our present strength, we
were disposed to forget our origin, our very
speech bewrays us : for we use the language which
he taught us in the infancy of our science. If we,
by our united efforts, are chiselling the ornaments
and slowly raising up the pinnacles of one of the
temples of nature, it was he who gave the plan,
and laid the foundations, and erected a portion of
the solid walls by the unassisted labour of his
hands.

" The men who have led the way in useful dis-
coveries, have ever held the first place of honour
in the estimation of all who in after times have
understood their works or trodden in their steps.
It is upon this abiding principle that we have

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acted ; and in awarding our first prize to Mr.
Smith, we believe that we have done honour to
our own body, and are sanctioned by the highest
feelings which bind societies together.

" I think it a high privilege to fill this chair on
an occasion when we met, not coldly to deliberate
on the balance of conflicting claims, in which, after
all, we might go wrong, and give the prize to one
man by injustice to another; but to perform a sacred
duty, where there is no room for doubt or error,
and to perform an act of public gratitude, in which
the judgment and the feelings are united." *

On this occasion Mr. Smith presented to the
society the original Table of Stratification drawn
in 1799, and a circle-map of the vicinity of Bath,
which had been geologically coloured about the
same period.

The British Association, founded at York in
1 83 1, held its second meeting at Oxford in June,
1832 ; and on this occasion the Wollaston Medal,
awarded in the previous year, was put in Mr.
Smith's possession ; and he was further gratified
by the announcement that a pension of one
hundred pounds, solicited by the united voice of
English geologists, had been assigned him by the
Government of His Majesty William the Fourth.

The meeting of the British Association was this
year (1839) appointed to be held at Birmingham,
on the 26th of August, and Mr. Smith received

* Address to the Geological Society, at the Anniversary Meeting,
Feb. 18, 1 83 1, by the President, the Rev. Adam Sedgwick, M.A.,
F.R.S., etc.

WILLIAM SMITH. 2/3

from Mr. Joseph Hodgson (one of the secretaries
of the meeting) a special and very cordial invita-
tion to be present. He stopped on his journey to
Birmingham, at the house of friends at Northamp-
ton. Here the kindest welcome awaited him ; and
in addition to the pleasure of contemplating the
beautiful series of Northamptonshire fossils which
had been collected, he was gratified by several ex-
cursions into the neighbouring country, which had
always been interesting to him since, in earlier
days, he had opened the curious volume of Mor-
ton's " Northamptonshire." While thus tracing the
boundaries of the minor divisions of the oolitic
rocks which he had been the first to distinguish, a
slight cold by which he was affected seemed to the
eyes of his friends, to deserve more attention than
he bestowed on it ; medical assistance became
immediately advisable. William Smith had for
many years been successful in guarding his own
usually robust health, and he was slow and reluc-
tant to admit of advice better suited to the disorder
which now attacked him, and which on a former
occasion had so prostrated his strength that he
recovered with difficulty. He began to feel the
attack serious, and to perceive the alarm in the
faces of his friends.

It was difficult to believe, that under that calm,
thoughtful, and pleased expression of countenance,
those animated descriptions of the country which
he had visited a few days previously, those plans
of further and strenuous exertion, which asked

L T

2/4 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

years of active life for completion, lurked pain and
fatal disease. At first it seemed as if the remedies
applied were producing beneficial effects, but this
hope failed ; the uncomplaining sufferer sank con-
tinually in each succeeding hour, till his eyes lost
their bright and kindly light and the ever-varying
features became fixed in serene and awful tran-
quility (Aug. 28, 1839).

His life, written by his distinguished relation the
late Professor John Phillips, F.R.S. of Oxford, has
been the source of these pages. William Smith's
portrait hangs in the most distinguished position,
over the president's choir at the Geological Society
of London. He was a great genius, and suffered
much toil and poverty, in order to produce the
truth ; but he led a very happy life on the whole
for his thoughts about nature were his great and
good riches. He proved that there is a regular
succession of strata which are characterized by
their fossils, each stratum being the burial ground
of its time of collection.

CHAPTER XII.

THE LIFE OF MURCHISON.

The older rocks of the globe studied accurately and surveyed —
The general similarity of the succession of strata in many parts
of the world decided — The geology of Wales and Scotland de-
scribed— The commencement of accurate geological surveys.

Roderick Impey Murchison was the descen-
dant of a very old Rossshire family, who were great
supporters of the Stuarts in the wild western
country of the north of Scotland. His great-
grandfather fell at Sheriffmuir, and his grandfather,
a tenant farmer, had to struggle with slender means
during a long life. But long before this fine old
man died, at the age of ninety-nine, he saw the
fortunes of his family retrieved by his eldest son,
whom he outlived.

This son, Roderick Impey Murchison's father,
was born in 175 1, and, thanks to the cheap and
good education which was to be got at Edinburgh
and Glasgow, he became a surgeon. Passing the

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examination at the Royal College of Surgeons in
England, the young man was sent out to India,
and living at Lucknow for seventeen years, made
a fortune. He came home to the old country, and
bought the estate of Tarradale, in the eastern part
of Ross, kept up the old Highland customs, and
made himself useful as a medical man when aid
was required. He married, in 1791, the daughter
of Mackenzie, of Fairburn, lineal representative of
the Rory More, or Big Roderick Mackenzie, to
whom the estates had been granted by James V.
Their younger son, Roderick Impey was born in
February, 1792, and was reared by the "sonsie"
miller's wife of Tarradale, who hushed him to sleep
with gaelic lullabies, and gave him an occasional
taste of the famous whiskey distilled on the ad-
jacent lands of Ferrintosh. But the father got
delicate and moved to the south, carrying with
him his household. On the way an end nearly
came to the future geologist, for his father, wishing
to make the boy " stand fire," presented what was
thought an empty pistol at him. The mother
snatched the child away, and instantly a charge of
shot rattled through the window. The father died
when Murchison was only four years of age, and
the boy wrote in after years his sad memory of the
last of his father : " The opening of the red
damask curtains of the lofty old-fashioned bed, the
last kiss of my dying parent, and the form of the
old-fashioned edifice to which the invalid had been
removed, have been stereotyped in my mind."

MURCHISON. 277

The father was an accomplished gentleman, and
the mother a young and attractive lady. A second
marriage gave Murchison a good step-father in
Colonel Robert Macgregor Murray, a friend of the
deceased ; but home life was broken up when the
colonel was ordered off to Ireland during the
rebellion. So Murchison was sent to the Durham
Grammar School in 1799. He had a bitter parting
from his mother and from Sally, the Devonshire
lass, who gave him his English accent, which he
retained through life. Six years were passed
at school, and he was as full of mischief as most
boys ; picking up at the same time some of the
so-called rudiments of learning.

He was ringleader in most of the exploits of the
school, and during the holidays led a very active
life with the assistance of his pony and terrier.
One day his uncle told him that in due time he
would make a good soldier, and from that day
Murchison read of nothing but military heroes.

At the early age of thirteen he was sent to the
military college at Great Marlow, and, after one
pluck, was admitted as cadet. There he became
conspicuous as a daring leader of fun and frolic,
and as a moderate student ; nevertheless he was
great at drill. A gift which decided in after
years much of his success was fostered at Great
Marlow. His exercises in military drawing led to
the future rapidity and correctness of his " eye "
for " country " in geological surveying.

At fifteen years of age Murchison was gazetted as

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an ensign in the 36th regiment, and at Edinburgh
he took lessons in French, ItaHan, German, and
mathematics. He learned to ride and fence, and
went in for debating. So having, as he said, done
so much in the way of having a good opinion of
himself, he was ordered to join his regiment at
Cork in the winter of 1807-8. He was wonderfully-
surprised to find the officers anything but dandies,
and, in fact, true old soldiers, quiet, well disciplined
and associated with a first-rate fighting regiment.
His chief, Colonel Burne, was a cool and gallant
officer, and a favourite of Sir Arthur Wellesley's.
In 1808 the regiment was prepared for service in
South America, and was suddenly ordered to
Portugal, and on August ist he landed, and saw
the future Wellington put his foot on Portuguese
soil, followed by his aide-de-camp, the future Lord
Raglan.

A battle was soon to be fought, and at Vimiera.

Professor Geikie's charming " Life of Murchison,"
from which this little history is compiled, gives the
following graphic description of Murchison's first
fight, at Vimiera : —

" To return to our own part of the battle, i.e., to
our left wing, the fire of the enemy soon became
very hot, and even though the 36th were lying
on their breasts under the brow, our men were
getting pretty much hit, whilst the regiment in our
rear, the 82nd, which at that time could not fire a
shot, suffered more than we did. General Spencer,
who commanded the division, when moving about

MURCHISON. 279

to regulate the general movements, was hit by a
ball in the hand, and I saw him wrap his handker-
chief round it, and heard him say, ' It is only a
scratch ! ' Soon after the light infantry in our front
closed files and fell in ; our guns we pulled back,
and then came the struggle. General Ferguson
waving his hat, up we rose, old Burne (our colonel)
crying out, as he shook his yellow cane, that he
would knock down any man who fired a shot.

" This made some merriment among the men, as
tumbling over was the fashion without the appli-
cation of their colonel's cane. " Charge," was the
word, and at once we went over the brow with a
steady line of glittering steel, and with a hearty
hurrah, against six regiments in close column, with
six pieces of artillery, just in front of the 36th.
But not an instant did the enemy stand against this
most unexpected sally within pistol shot. Off they
went, and all their guns were instantly taken,
horses and all, and then left in our rear, whilst we
went on chasing the runaways for a mile and a
half, as hard as we could go, over the moor of
Tourinhao. They rallied, it is true, once or twice,
particularly behind some thick prickly-pear hedges
and a hut or two on the flat table-land ; but
although their brave General Solignac was always
cantering to their front, and animating them
against us, they at last fled precipitately, until they
reached a small hamlet, where, however, they did
make a tolerable stand.

" Here it was that Sir Arthur Wellesley overtook

280 HEROES OF SCIENCE

US after a smart gallop. He had witnessed from a
distance our steady and successful charge, and our
capture of the guns, and he now saw how we were
thrusting the French out of this hamlet. Through
the sound of the musketry, and in the midst of
much confusion, I heard a shrill voice calling out,
* Where are the colours of the 36th ? and I turned
round (my brother ensign, poor Peter Bone, having
just been knocked down), and looking up into Sir
Arthur's bright and confident face said, ' Here they
are, sir.' Then he shouted, * Very well done, my
boys ! Halt, halt — quite enough.'

" The French were now at their last run, in spite
of every effort of Solignac to rally them. Several
of our bloody-minded old soldiers said in levelling,

' they would bring down the on the white

horse,' and sure enough the gallant fellow fell, just
as the 71st Highlanders, who were on our left,
being moved round en potence, charged down the
hill, with their wounded piper playing, sitting on
the ground, and completed the rout of the enemy,
taking General Solignac of course prisoner."

Subsequently Murchison's regiment joined the
expedition of Sir John Moore, and participated in
the disastrous retreat upon Corunna. " Murchison
(writes Professor Geikie) suffered much, although
he was strong and in good health, from the ex-
cessive fatigue. On one occasion, after a fruitless
midnight march against the enemy, who was
supposed to be advancing to the attack, Murchison,
commanding that night an outlying picquet, threw

MURCHISON. 281

himself into a corner of a farmer's yard, and soon
fell asleep. Day had scarcely broken when the cry
of ' Picquet, turn out ! ' roused him from his rest,
but not in time to escape the notice of the vigilant
Colonel Packe, who, however, allowed him to
escape with a severe reprimand. But after the
halt at Tugo, when having vainly offered battle to
the French, the British army retreated by a forced
march to Corunna, the young lieutenant fairly
broke down. The mule, which had hitherto
carried himself or his kit, was lost ; his old soldier
servant had gone back to seek among the snow
for his wife and child." Of this sad time he has
preserved the following recollections : — " Never
shall I forget the night which followed the abandon-
ing of our position in front of Tugo. We marched
through that city at dusk, and then blew up the
bridge, which was to check for awhile our foe. In
darkness, with no food, and after sleepless nights,
with worn-out shoes, and thoroughly disgusted
with always running off and not fighting, this army
now fell into utter disorder. Starved as they were,
the men soon became reckless, and all the regi-
ments got mixed together ; in short, the soldiers
were desperate, in spite of the exertions of the few
mounted officers. For my own part, I walked on,
usually in my sleep, with the grumbling and tumul-
tuous mass, until awakened by the loss of my boots
in one of the numerous deep cuts across the roads,
which were like quagmires, so that with my bare
feet I had some twenty miles still to march, Many

282 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

of the soldiers got away from the road to right and
left. Marching all that dreadful night my young
frame at last gave way, the more so as I was bare-
foot, cold, and starved, and already the great body
of troops had got ahead of me. In short, I was
now one of a huge arrear of stragglers when day
broke and the little hamlet was in sight.

" Seated on a bank on the side of the road, and
munching a raw turnip which I had gathered from
the adjacent field, and just as I was feeling that
I never could regain my regiment and must be
taken a prisoner, a black-eyed drummer of the
96th came from the village, whither the young
fellow had been to cater. Seeing I was exhausted,
and almost as young as myself, and not yet a
hardened old soldier, he slipped round his canteen,
which he had contrived to fill with red wine, and
gave me a hearty drink. He thus saved me from
being taken prisoner by the French, who were
rapidly advancing, and who, if they had had a regi-
ment of cavalry in pursuit, might at that moment
have taken prisoners, or driven into the mountains,
a good third of the British forces.

"With the draught of wine I trudged on again,
and came in, at eleven o'clock of the loth, into the
town of Betanzos, and rejoined my regiment, which
had marched in about fifty men only, with the
colours, though ere night it was made up to its
strength of six hundred and odd men. This fact
alone shows better than a world of other evidence,
what forced night-marches with a starving and

MURCHISON. 283

retreating army must infallibly produce. At Tugo
the 36th regiment was fit to fight anything ; in two
days it was a rabble.

" Happily for me I tumbled into a shoemaker's
house. His handsome young wife washed my
feet with warm water, and furnished me with
stockings, while her husband came to my further
aid with shoes. But my swollen feet had no time
to recover. On the following day the whole army,
such as it was, passed over the river, blowing up
the bridge and taking up its last position.

"There, remnant as it was, the army formed a
respectable line — Corunna within two miles of us,
and our fleet ready to back us. Provisions and
shoes were served out to us, and with such luxuries
the bivouac, even in the month of January, was
well borne. In truth, the army got into compara-
tive good spirits, and on the 15th the French
crossed the last bridge we had blown up, and were
defiling at a respectable distance along our front.
We were quite refreshed, and ready to repel them.
The picquets, indeed, of our (Hope's) division had
a sharp encounter in that evening, and when
looking through the colonel's glass, I saw Colonel
Mackenzie, of the 5th regiment, fall dead from his
grey horse whilst leading an attack on two of the
enemy's guns.

"On the i6th, just after our frugal repast, and
whilst leaning over one of the walls where we lay,
my old colonel, after looking some time with his
glass, suddenly exclaimed to me, 'Now, my boy,

284 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

they're coming on ; ' and when I took a peep to the
hills beyond on the right and south-west, I per-
ceived the glitter of columns coming out of a wood.
Scarcely had the colonel given the word to fall in,
when a tremendous fire opened from a battery of
seventeen to twenty pieces, under cover of which
the enemy was rolling down in dense columns from
the wooded hills upon our poor fellows, who were
in a hollow with their arms piled, like our own,
until they were assaulted.

" For our cavalry was extinct, as the horses and
men, as well as most of our artillery, were embarked
on the 13th and 14th ; yet never since Englishmen
fought was there a more gallant fight than was
made by the 4th, 42nd, and 50th regiments (Lord
W. Bentinck's brigade), who rushed on with the
bayonet, and, supported by guards, held their own
against a terrific superiority, until General Paget
was ordered to move his brigade towards the
enemy's flank, and compelled them to withdraw ;
not, however, before poor Moore, galloping out
from the town, fell while encouraging the troops,
and Baird, who marched his division out of the
town, had lost his arm. My own brigade had
much less to do, our front line and picquets being
alone engaged.

"As night fell, and after the firing had ceased,
the enemy having returned to his own ground, we
received the order to march into Corunna and
embark. Our fires were left burning to deceive
the enemy, and make him believe that he must

MURCHISON. 285

fight us again next morning if he hoped to
beat us.

"Silently and regularly we moved on this our
last short night-march in the dark, tranquil night
of the i6th, and, passing through the gates, reached
the quay. The names of our respective transports
had previously been explained to us, my own being
the brig Reward, which I found to be from Sunder-
land. I was on deck as light dawned, and then at
once saw the danger of the position of this miserable
little transport, as well as of a dozen or more of the
same craft. They had been foolishly allowed to
anchor immediately under the tongue of high land
which forms the eastern side of the harbour, and
on which there were no land defences. Knowing
that this ground was only a continuation of the
hilly track on which my division had marched a
few hours before, and being certain that the French
would with the peep of day pass over our old
bivouac to this promontory, I at once urged our
skipper to get up his anchor betimes. But the
grog had, I suppose, been strong that night. He
exclaimed, * Why, I tell you, the brave Highlanders
are there ; they have not come away like you folks.'
Scarcely had he spoken when a battery of field-
pieces opened their fire and sent some balls through
our rigging. Turning pale as death under the fire
of these mere field-pieces, and seeing that his crew
were ready to run below, he applied the axe to the
cable, and in a few minutes we were drifting away
as we best could. The wind being from the east,

286 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

we were fast approaching the rocks on which the
Castle of Antonio stands, and on which at least five
transports similarly circumstanced to my own were
wrecked, the men being saved with difficulty, after
losing their arms, colours, and baggage.

"I have often reflected on the extraordinary
want of all due arrangement on the part of our
admiral, in command of a splendid fleet, who
allowed those miserable transports to anchor in
such a position without placing a frigate or two
near them to silence the puny battery and prevent
the dismay which seized the skippers.

" Not missing stays, the Reivard floated away,
and was soon going fast before a strong nor'-easter,
with the rest of the fleet helter-skelter for the
Channel."

In 1 815 Murchison met Charlotte Hugouin, the
daughter of General Hugouin, and as she was
attractive, piquante, clever, and higly educated, she
made a conquest of the gallant soldier. They were
soon married, at Buriton, in Hampshire.

Hitherto he had lived at his own free will.
From this time he came under the influence of a
thoughtful, cultivated, and affectionate woman.
Quietly and imperceptibly that influence grew, and
she led him, with true womanly tact, into a sphere
of exertion where his uncommon powers might
find full scope. To his wife he owed his fame, as
he never failed gratefully to record ; but years had
to pass before her guidance had accomplished what
she had set before her as her aim.

MURCHISON. 287

Tired of the army, and possessing a great amount
of energy and physical power, Murchison longed
for a profession, and at one time seriously con-
templated entering the Church. But money was
scarce, and he went with his wife to live economi-
cally in Italy. This was an epoch in his life, and
he went by way of Paris, and there he heard Cuvier
lecture. At Geneva he met De Candolle, and as
his wife had relatives at Vevay, they spent some
time there, and Murchison began taking walking
tours. On one occasion he walked four hundred
and thirty-two miles over mountain ground, in
fourteen days, finishing with a last day's walk
of thirty-seven miles. In another excursion to
Mont Blanc he walked one hundred and twenty
miles in three days. This was characteristic of
the man. But it was not simple exercise that he
took, for his retentive memory and eye for land-
scape were occupied ; and such walks always pro-
duced good results in after years.

Arrived at Rome they went into lodgings, and
Murchison became a confirmed visitor of galleries,
museums, and churches. Then Mrs. Murchison fell
ill, and they went, on her recovery, to Naples,
where, of course, Vesuvius was seen, but oddly
enough, his written impressions of the scene do
not tell of any geological tastes. Two years glided
away, and they founded his intellectual life, and
impressed him that it was better than gaiety.
When returned to England, Murchison sold his
Scotch estate and went to live in a most out of the

288 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

way old mansion at Barnard Castle, in Durham.
Then there was no art, and therefore Murchison
became a sportsman, and for five years rode as
hard and as well to the front as any of his fox-
hunting friends. Every now and then some in-
tellectual society was enjoyed at some of the great
houses of the neighbourhood, and Murchison made
the acquaintance of Sir Humphrey Davy. Mrs.
Murchison did not care about the everlasting
hunting, and tried, in her wise manner, to wean
him from the purposeless life he was leading. She
knew botany, and tried to interest her husband in
it, but he did not care for it ; then she tried to
learn mineralogy to get him to help her. But
Murchison got deeper and deeper into the love of
field sports, and took a house at Melton Mowbray
and hunted six days in the week. Murchison got
tired at last, and having met Sir Humphrey Davy
again, was advised by him to interest himself about
chemistry. So Murchison sold his horses and gave
up his establishment, really intending to settle in
London. But probably want of means prevented
his having an establishment in the West End at
first, so he led a less active but still sporting life in
the south of Scotland for some time.

Murchison was now to change his method of life
completely, and the summer of 1824 saw the last
of his rambles, wherever the rocks around him
made no direct and urgent appeal to him. Bring-
ing his wife to London, they rented a house in
Montague Place, and Murchison began to attend

MURCHISON. 289

scientific lectures, and especially those on geology,
which was at that time much talked about. Hut-
ton's admirable views of the causes of the changes
on the surface of the earth, and their possible com-
parison with those" of the present day, was making
progress, but was still antagonized by the notions
of sudden convulsions and great underground move-
ments. He went to the Geological Society, a young
and ardent one, which had sprung into active work
in spite of the opposition of the nursing mother of
science, the Royal Society.

With hearing lectures on science, scientific papers
and discussions, attending evening soirees, and the
opportunity of hearing and talking to men who had
already made themselves famous, Murchison found
enough fully to fill up his time, and to make
London life a very different thing to him from what
it had been in the old days, when he used to escape
to town from the monotony of a country barrack.
With his characteristic ardour, he had not com-
pleted his first winter's studies in geology before
he longed to be off into the field to observe for
himself.

" My first real field work," he says, " began under
Professor Buckland, who having taken a fancy to
me as one of his apt scholars, invited me to visit
him at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and attend
one or two of his lectures. This was my true
launch. Travelling down with him in the Oxford
coach, I learned a world of things before we reached
the Isis, and, amongst other things, I enjoyed a

L U

290 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

lecture on Crustacea, given whilst he pulled to
pieces on his knees, a cold crab, bought at a fish-
monger's shop at Maidenhead, where he usually
lunched as the coach stopped.

" On repairing from the Star inn to Buckland's
domicile, I never can forget the scene which
awaited me. Having, by direction of the janitor,
climbed up a narrow staircase, I entered a long
corridor-like room (now all destroyed), which was
filled with rocks, shells, and bones in dire confusion,
and, in a sort of sanctum at the end was my friend,
in his black gown, looking like a necromancer, sitting
on the sole rickety chair not covered with some fos-
sils, and cleaning out a fossil bone from the matrix."

The few days spent at Oxford were memorably
pleasant. Buckland's wit and enthusiasm glowed
all his scientific sayings and doings, and he had a
rare power of description, by which he could make
even a dry enough subject fascinatingly interesting.
Murchison heard one or two brilliant lectures from
him, but what was of still more importance, he
accompanied the merry professor and his students,
mounted on Oxford hacks, to Shotover Hill, and
for the first time in his life had a landscape geo-
logically dissected before him. From that eminence
his eye was taught to recognize the broader features
of the succession of the oolitic rocks of England
up to the far range of the Chalk Hills, and this
not in a dull, text-book fashion, for Buckland, in
luminous language, brought the several elements
of the landscape into connection with each other,

MURCHISON. 291

and with a few fundamental principles which have
determined the sculpturing of the earth's surface.
His audience came to see merely a rich vale in the
midst of fertile England, but before they quitted
the ground, the landscape had been made to yield
up to them, clear notions of the origin of springs
and the principles of drainage. This was the very
kind of instruction needed to fan the growing flame
of Murchison's zeal for science. He returned to
town burning with desire to put his knowledge to
some use by trying to imitate, no matter how
feebly, the admirable way in which the Oxford
professor had applied the lessons of the lecture-
room to the elucidation of the history of hills and
valleys.

Murchison started with his wife in the middle of
August, on a tour of nine weeks along the south
coast, from the Isle of Wight into Devon and
Cornwall. Taking a light carriage and a pair of
horses, he made the journey in short stages, linger-
ing for days at some of the more interesting or
important geological localities. Driving, boating,
walking, or scrambling, the enthusiastic pair sig-
nalized their first geological tour by a formidable
amount of bodily toil.

Mrs. Murchison specially devoted herself to the
collection of fossils, and to sketching the more
striking geological features of the coast-line, while
her husband would push on to make some long
and laborious detour. In this way, while she re-
mained quietly working at Lyme Regis, he struck

292 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

westward for a fortnight into Devon and Cornwall,
to make his first acquaintance with the rocks to
which, in after years, Sedgwick and he were to
give the name by which they are now recognized
all over the world. It was in the course of this
tour that he met with a man, whom he has the
merit of having brought into notice, and who cer-
tainly amply requited him by the services rendered
in later years. William Lonsdale had served in
the Peninsular war, and retired on half-pay to
Bath. With the most simple and abstemious
habits, his slender income sufficed not only for his
wants, but for the purchase of any book or fossil
he coveted, and so he spent his time in studying
the organic remains, and especially the fossil corals,
to be found in his neighbourhood. Murchison met
him accidentally in some quarries, "a tall, grave
man, with a huge hammer on his shoulder," and
found him so full of information, that he stayed
some days at Bath under Lonsdale's guidance.

With the enlargement of view which so in-
structive a ramble had given him, Murchison
prepared and read to the Geological Society, on
i6th December, 1825, his first scientific paper — "A
Geological Sketch of the North-western Extremity
of Sussex, and the adjoining parts of Hants and
Surrey." This little essay bore manifest evidence
of being the result of careful observation of the
order of succession of the rocks in the field,
followed by as ample examination of their fossils
as he could secure, from those best qualified to give

MURCHISON. 293

an opinion upon them. In these respects it was
typical of all his later work. Having shown by
this first publication his capacity as observer and
describer, and being further recommended by the
leisure which his position of independence enabled
him to command, he was soon after elected one of
the two honorary secretaries of the Geological
Society. " Lyell being then a law-student, with
chambers in the Temple, could only devote a
portion of his time to our science, and was glad to
make way as secretary to one who, like myself,
had nothing else to do than think and dream of
geology, and work hard to get on in my new
vocation."

In the spring of 1826 he was elected into the
Royal Society — an honour more easily won then
than now, and for which, as the President, his old
friend Sir Humphry Davy told him, he was
indebted, not to the amount or value of his
scientific work, but to the fact that he was an
independent gentleman, having a taste for science,
with plenty of time, and enough of money to
gratify it.

Murchison next investigated, at the instance of
Dr. Buckland, the geological age of the Brora coal-
field, in Sutherlandshire. Some geologists main-
tained that the rocks of that district were merely a
part of the ordinary coal, or carboniferous system ;
others held them to be greatly younger, to be,
indeed, of the same general age with the lower
oolitic strata of Yorkshire. A good observer

294 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

might readily settle this question ; Murchison
resolved to try.

Again he prepared himself by reading and study
of fossils to understand the evidence he was to
collect and interpret, and in order to do full justice
to the Scottish tract, he went first to the Yorkshire
coast, and made himself master of the succession,
and leading characters of the rocks so admirably
displayed along that picturesque line of cliffs.
The summer had hardly begun before he and his
wife broke up their camp in London and were on
the move northwards. At York he made the
acquaintance of two men, with whom he was
destined in after life to have much close intercourse
and co-operation— the Rev. William Vernon (after-
wards Vernon Harcourt) and Mr. (subsequently
Professor) John Phillips.

Murchison's own record of the meeting is as
follows : — " Phillips, then a youth, was engaged in
arranging a small museum at York. He recom-
mended Murchison strongly to his uncle, William
Smith, who was then living at Scarborough, and
had little intercourse with the Geological Society.
From the moment I had my first walk with William
Smith (then about sixty years old), I felt that he
was just the man after my own heart ; and he, on
his part, seeing that I had, as he said, * an eye for
a country,' took to me, and gave me most valuable
lessons. Thus he made me thoroughly acquainted
with all the strata north and south of Scarborough.
He afterwards accompanied me in a boat all along

MURCHISON. 295

the coast, stopping and sleeping at Robin Hood's
Bay. Not only did I then learn the exact position
of the beds of poor coal which crop out in that
tract of the eastern moorlands, but collecting with
him the characteristic fossils from the calcareous
grit down to the lias, I saw how clearly strata must
alone be identified by their fossils, inasmuch as
here, instead of oolite limestone like those of the
south we had sandstones, grits, and shales which,
though closely resembling the beds of the old coal,
were precise equivalents of the oolitic series of the
south. Smith walked about stoutly with me all
under the cliffs from Robin Hood's Bay to Whitby,
making me well note the characteristic fossils of
each formation."

Though the main object of this summer tour
was to work out the geological problem which had
been assigned to him in Sutherlandshire, he
sketched a most circuitous route, partly for the
sake of showing Mrs. Murchison something more
of the Highlands than she had yet seen, and
partly with the view of putting to use his new
acquirements in geology ; so that after reaching
Edinburgh, and having its geology expounded to
him by Jameson, instead of striking north at once,
he turned westwards to the island of Arran, and
spent many weeks among the western islands from
the Firth of Clyde to the north of Skye. The
hills of his native country had now acquired an
interest for him which they never possessed even
in the days when they drew him off in eager

296 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

pursuit of grouse and black cock. At every halt
his first anxiety was to know what the rocks of the
place might be, and how far he could identify their
geological position. In Arran he filled his note-
book with observations and queries about granite,
red sandstone, limestone, and other puzzling
matters, on which his previous experience in field-
work in the south of England and in Yorkshire
could throw no light, and for the elucidation of
which he wisely resolved to secure, at some future
time, the guidance and co-operation of an older
geologist than himself. It was in the fulfilment of
this resolution that Sedgwick and he first became
fellow-workers in the field.

In the wildest of the western islands he and his
wife did excellent work in collecting fossils, and
thereby obtaining materials for making more
detailed comparison between the secondary rocks of
the west of Scotland and those of England than
had been attempted by Dr. MaccuUoch. The
actual fossil-hunting was mainly done by Mrs.
Murchison, after whom one of the shells {Aminon-
ites Miirchisonice) was named by Sowerby, while
her husband climbed the cliffs and trudged over
the moors and crags, to make out the order of
succession among the secondary strata. But the
tour was not merely geological ; m.any a halt and
detour were made to get a good view of some fine
scenery, or to make yet another sketch. Friends
and highland cousins, too, were plentifully scattered
along the route, so that the travellers had ample

MURCHISON. 297

experience of the hearty hospitaHty of those
regions. An occasional shot at grouse or deer,
varied the monotony of the hammering ; but even
when stalking, Murchison could not keep his eyes
from the rocks. Amid the jottings of his sport he
had facts to chronicle about the gneiss or porphyry
or sandstone through which the sport had led him.
This characteristic, traceable even at this early
period of his life, remained prominent up to the
last autumn of his life in which he was able to
wield a gun or hammer.

The summer had in great part passed before he
reached that part of the eastern coast of Suther-
landshire where the scene of his special task lay;
but that task proved to be eminently easy. From
Dunrobin, where he was hospitably entertained, he
could follow northwards and southwards a regular
succession of strata, and he recognized in them the
equivalents of parts of the oolite series of York-
shire. The Brora coal, therefore, instead of form-
ing part of the true carboniferous system, was
simply a local peculiarity in the oolitic series. He
made a collection of the fossils, which offered a
means of satisfactory comparison with the oolitic
rocks of England.

The rapidity with which this piece of work
could be done left time for a prolongation of the
tour northwards through Caithness, even up into
the Orkney Islands, but at length the tourists had
to prepare for a southward migration again.
Reaching Inverness, they turned eastward to

298 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Aberdeen, and thence down the eastern coast by
Peterhead, by Buller's of Buchan, Arbroath, and
St. Andrews. The immediate result of this sum-
mer's work was seen in the preparation of a paper
for the Geological Society.

Professor Sedgwick had already distinguished
himself in the difficult labour of unravelling the
structure of some of the older rocks, and Murchi-
son suggested that they should visit Scotland and
examine and describe part of the country together.
They desired to ascertain if possible the position
and general relations of the Old Red sandstone.
This journey, intensely amusing in its anecdotes,
led to much united work and good fellowship.

Having learned the principles of the science,
Murchison went to study geology in the field on
the continent. Accompanied by Mrs. Murchison,
he visited the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne, the
South of France and Italy, and finally Ger-
many. Next year the Alps were explored, and
subsequently Austria. At Vienna, Murchison in-
dulged a little in what he always liked, and which
did good to science, good society, and then started
for Styria, and got much puzzled about the rocks
and fossils at Gosau. On his return to England
Murchison became secretary to the Geological So-
ciety, and held the position for five years, and then
he became the president of the society. Subse-
quently he began seriously to attempt the descrip-
tion of the geology of Wales which ended in the
establishment of the Silurian system of rocks.

MURCHISON. 299

Then the Devonian and old red sandstones were
considered, and the merits of the paleontologist,
Lonsdale, who really established the great geo-
logical division of the Devonian, were fully con-
ceded. About this time Murchison and his wife
settled in the well known mansion in Belgrave
Square, which was such a home for scientific men,
British and foreign, for many a long year to come.
Russia was the next country to be explored, and
Murchison spent a long and very pleasant time
there ; and his description of the Ural Mountains
was of great importance. He was the first to sketch
out broadly the geological construction of that very
monotonous country, and to point out the existence
there of a formation which covers the coal-bearing
rocks of England, and which he called the Permian.
Returning to England, after receiving the thanks of
the Emperor Nicholas, Murchison again became
President of the Geological Society, and with in-
creased experience endeavoured to work out more
fully than before, the old rocks of Wales, which he
and Sedgwick had laboured over in common.
Murchison and Sedgwick, however, began at this
time to misunderstand one another, and those ad-
mirable men, the one having recognized the higher
strata, and the other the lower, began to differ re-
garding the line of separation of their work. It is
an unsettled point even at the present day, notwith-
standing all the knowledge that these great men
have left to us, and all that has come to science
since their time. Ever enthusiastic in the cause of

300 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

science as he had been in war and in the field,
Murchison allowed himself no rest, but started for
Germany via France to examine the red sands
and clays in those countries which, overlying the
carboniferous formation, resemble in position the
Permian of Russia. The geologist was treated like
a prince by kings, emperors, and a host of titled
people who were glad to welcome the perfect gentle-
man so full of good genial temper and amiability.

At the same time Murchison did not forget the
British Association for the Advancement of Science,
with which he was officially connected. In 1843
he began to interest himself in the then little Geo-
graphical Society, which had been founded in 1830,
chiefly by members of the Rayleigh Travellers'
club. Murchison was chosen its president, and
he read an address to the fellows in 1844. This
society, now of great utility to science and civiliza-
tion, was fostered mainly by Murchison, and passed
through years of steady progress under his manage-
ment. In the same year, our geologist visited
Scandinavia, where he found science more honoured
than anywhere else on earth, and went on to St.
Petersburg. Returning to England, Murchison and
his fellow labourers. Von Keyserling and De
Verneuil, published the great work on " Russia,
and the Ural Mountains," and our hero became a
recognized pillar in geological science.

Knowing the geology of the Ural Mountains
thoroughly, and having paid much attention to
those parts of them w^here gold is found, Murchison

MURCHISON. 301

was impressed, when he read of the nature of the
Australian Alps, that they ought to be auriferous.
In 1845, and 1846, Murchison spoke and wrote on
this subject, and kept on directing the attention of
the colonists to the necessity of searching for the
precious mineral. In 1846 Murchison advised the
unemployed tin miners of Cornwall to emigrate and
dig for gold in Australia. In 1 847 a Mr. W. T. Smith,
of Sydney, acquainted Murchison that he had dis-
covered gold, and a Mr. Phillips, of Adelaide, wrote
announcing the same fact. Finally, in 1848, Murchi-
son impressed on Her Majesty's Secretary of State
for the colonies the necessity of having Australia
surveyed, for the purpose of gold finding. Three
years afterwards a Mr. Hargraves came forward as
the real Simon pure, and was acknowledged by the
ignorant legislature of New South Wales as the
discoverer of gold in Australia. Count Strzelecki,
a geologist, sent Murchison specimens of rocks
from Australia, and positively found gold, not by
inference, as in Murchison's case, but in reality.
But at the request of the colonial authorities it was
kept a secret ! ! ! The Rev. W. B. Clarke, F.R.S.,
a capital geologist, found gold in places, and settled
what rocks it was in. This was in 1841. So that
Murchison, although not the first discoverer, or the
first who inferred the existence of gold in the
Australian rocks, must have great credit given to
him.

Twenty years had passed away since Murchison
sold his horses and gave up fox hunting, and he

302 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

had done more than any man to establish the grand
features of the outside structure of the earth, and
to prove the succession everywhere of the same
great formations. He was knighted in 1846, an
honour which was appreciated in those days, but
which is not compatible with the proper simplicity
and nobility of science at the present time. Every-
body was glad of the honour being given, and
received by Murchison, and " Sir Roderick," for the
future came as aptly to the thoughts of his friends
as " Mr. Murchison " had done of old. There is no
doubt that at this time this experienced geologist
believed that great lapses of time had occurred,
involving great distinctions and new creations
between the successive geological formations, that
great changes had happened, universally, in the
physical geography of the land and sea before a
new formation was produced, and that the vast
majority of fossils found in one were not recog-
nized in a succeeding formation. He believed much
in grand and sudden catastrophic changes in nature.
The presidency of the British Association was
given to the new scientific knight, and he worthily
occupied the chair at the meeting at Southampton
in 1846.

In 1848, the year of revolution in Europe,
Murchison enjoyed foreign politics and Alpine
geology, and made the acquaintance of most of the
young Swiss geologists, whose names are now so
celebrated. An essay on the geology of the Alps
was written, and our hero received the Copley

MURCHISON. 303

Medal of the Royal Society. But the many years
of close and hard work had told even on Murchi-
son's iron frame ; and his wife was an invalid. So
they spent the summer of 1849 ^t Buxton, much
to the disgust of the geologist, however. He
attended the meeting of the British Association at
Birmingham, however, and relapsed into a state of
perpetual " liver," suppressed gout and " stomach
attacks." After awhile the invalid went abroad
and enjoyed rambling over the extinct volcanoes
of Auvergne, and had his trip over the same
ground twenty-two years before, brought before his
mind. But he did not accept the theories of Lyell
about the formation of the valleys and the denuda-
tion of the district. He stuck, unfortunately, to
the violent in nature, and dismissed the truth of
the former uniform and slow action of the same
forces as now prevail, from his mind. In the next
year Murchison was happy again with his old friend
Sedgwick, and they geologized in the highlands,
and enjoyed the hospitality of the young Duke
and Duchess of Argyll. Then the southern up-
lands of Scotland were examined ; and Murchison,
stimulated by the great progress of the writings of
Lyell, came out in strong opposition to the Hutto-
nian philosophy. Murchison contended in favour
of great oscillations and ruptures of the earth's crust
leading to the sudden breaking up and submer-
gence of tracts of land; but he did not explain how
all this took place or could take place. He believed
in many superficial deposits, such as drift, being the

304 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

product of violent convulsions and floods. His
frame of mind was not difficult to account for. He
had found, in investigating the Alps, that move-
ments amongst the strata had occurred on a vast
scale, and that whole series of them, hundreds of
feet thick, had not only been bent, but positively-
turned upside down. In 185 1 Murchison visited
Ireland, and geologized there, and gradually began
to complete his great work, entitled " Siluria ; or a
Description of the Geology of the Silurian Rocks
of the World and of their Fossils." This was
published in 1854. The next great act of Mur-
chison's was the assisting and promoting the
success of the geological survey of the United
Kingdom, and the establishment of the museum
in Jermyn Street. This led to the establishment
of the Royal School of Mines. Murchison became
the director of the survey, and went into the
subject with heart and soul, and found himself
surrounded by the most distinguished teachers in
England.

Murchison worked personally at the Scottish
rocks from 1855 to 1858, and it is a matter of
interest that at the present day his admirable work
relating to the order of the older rocks is a vexed
question. In i860, Murchison went to the high-
lands for the fourth time, and came to the same
conclusions as before.

Year after year the grand old man laboured on
for the benefit of the sciences of geology and geo-
graphy, and kept the geological survey in capital

MURCHISON. 305

order. He obtained the sanction of the Govern-
ment for colonial surveys, and was, in fact, the
main stay of science in relation to the state. For
ten years he did all this, and occasionally indulged
in a trip to the north and west, and also into
Bohemia. In 1862, Murchison was terribly troubled
by the sudden ill-health of his wife, to whom he
owed so much. She became more and more of an
invalid, and died in 1869. It was the greatest
blow possible, and it brought the kindest letter
from his old friend Sedgwick, eighty-four years of
age. In September, 1870, Murchison's time was
coming to an end. A slight attack of paralysis
warned him to retire from active life. In the
spring of 1871 he prepared his last address as
president of the Royal Geographical Society, and
resigned the chair he had so ably filled for fifteen
years. He lingered on, and passed quietly away on
October 22nd, 1871, full of years and well merited
honours. Murchison's name will live for ever as a
clear, keen-eyed, careful observer of nature, and as
a master of the facts relating to much of the ancient
history of the earth. He was a great stimulator of
men of science, assisted the weak, and helped the
good worker. He had a great personal character,
religious, honest, truthful, open and generous ; he
was a gentleman indeed. His biographer. Pro-
fessor A. Geikie, F.R.S,, whose most charming
book has been so freely quoted by me, writes about
his good old friend as follows : " A man's face and
figure afford usually a good indication of the
I. X

306 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

general calibre of the spirit which lodges beneath
them. The picture which rises to the mind when
one thinks of Murchison, is that of a tall, wiry,
muscular frame, which still kept its erectness even
under the burden of almost fourscore years. It
seemed the type of body for an active geologist,
who had to win his reputation by dint of hard
climbing and walking, almost as much as by
mental power. It was, moreover, united in his
case with a certain pomp and dignity of manner,
which at one time recalled the military training
of the Peninsula days, at another the formal
courtesy of the well-bred gentleman of a bygone
generation."

[|Pi(|iiii)iiiij^ii^ii(|iiiiyii|||i|M ii',f i!''j'j L "I'I'Ji

lBh>^-dg^%^^i^^j^BJKgi'3u^^^

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LIFE OF LYELL.

The study of existing nature and its changes undertaken in order
to comprehend the past changes during geological ages — The
uniformity of natural operations under law — Catastrophes
abolished — The succession of life on the globe, and that of the
tertiary ages explained — The antiquity of man and of the great
ice age considered.

Charles Lyell was born in Forfarshire, at Kin-
nordy, on November 14th, 1797. His father was
an able, wealthy, well-educated gentleman ; and
his mother, a Yorkshire lady, had the usual good
sound sense of the women of that county. He was
the eldest of ten children, the whole of whom grew
up ; and he, as is commonly the case in large
families, was a good son and brother, and a most
independent man in mind and action.

Charles Lyell's family resided, for years, in the
south of England after his birth, and the boy was
sent to school early ; and in his amusing history of
his schoolboy days, which is given in the " Life
of Sir Charles Lyell," edited by his sister-in-law,

308 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

Mrs. Lyell, he went through all the fun and
trouble, the games by day and the bolsterings by
night, the keeping of pets, and the petty warfares
of the English schoolboy. When eleven years of
age, Lyell got into indifferent health at school after
measles, and this necessitated his being less pressed
at his lessons. He was fond of study, however,
and this enforced idleness made him take to some
of his father's amusements, that of entomology.

Young Lyell studied butterflies, and chased
them in the fields and woodlands of the New
Forest in Hampshire. He soon began to study
the changes of form which insects undergo in their
short lives, and to watch, hour after hour, the
habits of the water-beetles and other aquatic
insects. After spoiling a considerable number of
hats in chasing butterflies, Lyell was supplied with
a net and a cabinet in which to place his stores of
insect wealth. Oddly enough, some of the varieties
of the butterflies which young Lyell collected were
of use in after years to Curtis the entomologist.
The boy had no companions in these "un-English"
amusements, and was very grateful for the assis-
tance of his father's head servant, who knew a few
plants by sight, and helped his young master.
"Instead of sympathy," wrote Lyell, "I received
from almost every one beyond my home, either
ridicule, or hints that the pursuits of other boys
were more manly. Whether did I fancy that
insects had no feeling? What could be the use
of them.-* The contemptuous appellation of 'butter-

LYELL. 309

fly hunting ' applied to my favourite employment
always nettled me." However, Lyell persisted,
and when he got back to school he used to work at
his favourite subject out of school hours.

Finding a number of expensive books in his
father's library on entomology, with beautiful
plates in them, the boy's common sense told him
that somebody prized all this knowledge, and that
it must be valuable. Oddly enough, he took to
reading Linnaeus for descriptions of insects, and
hunted up pictures of his captured butterflies in
the plates of the more modern authors. Recovered
in health, and fairly strong, Lyell was sent at thir-
teen years of age to school at Dr. Bayley's, prepa-
ratory to being sent to the great school at Win-
chester. The new school was at Midhurst, in
Sussex, and it had all the demerits of the schools
of the day, fighting, fagging, and bullying being
rampant. Lyell came off well, although a weak
and short-sighted boy. Nevertheless, he stated
that the method of teaching got rid of ''most of
my natural antipathy to work and extreme absence
of mind, and I acquired habits of attention, which
were, however, painful to me, and only sustained
when I had an object in view."

It is evident that at this time, 1811-1813, Lyell's
heart was not altogether in his classics and mathe-
matics, and that he was reading other subjects
which were more pleasing to him. At the early
age of seventeen, Lyell entered Exeter College,
Oxford, and whilst v/orking fairly well at his

310 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

studies, cultivated music, and entered thoroughly
into all the politics and literary fellowships of the
undergraduates. His love of nature persisted, and
he began to direct his thoughts to the past, and to
learn something about fossils. Thus he found out
the house of Sowerby, the conchologist, by finding
at the door an ammonite, well known to Oxford
geologists. Subsequently, when on a visit to Mr.
Dawson Turner, of Norwich, he met a Javanese
traveller. Dr. Arnold. Mr. Dawson Turner had
a fine collection of Norwich and Suffolk fossils.
Lyell writes to his father to say, " I have copied
for Buckland, part of his paper, being a list of
those which are described, and shall copy the rest."
It appears that the seed was sown by attending a
course of lectures on geology, at Oxford, given by
the celebrated Dr. Buckland, and it is no little
thing for that great university to be able to assert
that its teaching developed the greatest system of
geology ever brought forward. Lyell geologized
over Norfolk, and in his conversations with his host
and Dr. Arnold, it appeared that he had got hold
of the idea, the elaboration of which is at the very
bottom of his future great work. Lyell studied
what is now in progress in nature so as to com-
prehend what occurred in the past times of the
earth. Modern changes are the examples by which
ancient changes can alone be studied. He quotes
in a letter to his father, the following saying of
Buckland and of White : " Local information, from
actual observation, tends more to promote natural

LYELL. 311

history science, than all that is done by the spe-
culations and compilations of voluminous authors."
Dr. Arnold made collections of Norfolk fossils,
and catalogued them, whilst his young friend
endeavoured to make a geological map of the
county. In the vacation Lyell and two friends
went to Staffa, and his description of the grand
columns of the old volcanic stone shows how he
enjoyed and comprehended the scene.

In 18 18 the family of the Lyells made a tour in
France, Switzerland, and Italy, and the notes,
letters, and diaries of the eldest son have been
preserved, and they show how gradually, yet surely,
he was educating himself for that path which he,
subsequently, never deserted. France was not very
lively, but he noticed the country more than the
people, and observed the country changed with
the soil. He spent his first Sunday at Paris, and
went to the Jardin des Plantes the first thing on
Monday morning, but was disappointed by not
hearing Cuvier lecture. In the evening he went to
see the great fountains at Versailles, where Wel-
lington was dining with some French marshals.
Day after day the wonderful sights of Paris were
visited ; but Lyell, whenever he had the opportunity,
slipped off to the Jardin des Plantes. He was much
struck with the collection of comparative anatomy,
which he said might tempt anyone who had the
opportunity of staying in Paris, to take up ardently
the study of anatomy. He studied Cuvier's work
on fossil remains, and on the geology of the

312 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

country round Paris. One of his visits was to
Cuvier's lecture room, which he described as filled
with fossil remains, among which are those glorious
relics of a former world. Leaving Paris, Lyell
travelled by post, and noticed the geology and
rocks of the monotonous country to the Jura
Mountains. He was mightily puzzled about the
rocks of the Jura, and enjoyed that magnificent
scene of the Alps from the top of the hills over
which he was travelling. He wrote, "In descending
the Jura from Lavatey to Gex, we had a most
magnificent view of a vast extent of country.
Below us the Lake of Geneva and the Canton de
Vaud ; before us the Savoy Alps towering up to
the clouds, and in spite of their great distance and
the height on which we stood, extended in a long
line before us like an army of giants, Mont Blanc
rising high above all in the middle as their chief.
We saw the Dent du Midi to our left, shooting up
his two remarkable peaks, with many more of
extraordinary and picturesque forms." On visiting
the Valley of Chamouni, we find Lyell naming the
rocks of the different well known scenes, according
to the accepted terms of the mineralogists of the
day, and this is a satisfactory proof that he had been
studying geology very effectually, by himself, before
he left England. He saw his first glacier, of any
importance, and was immensely struck with the
changes it was producing in the valley.

Many books have been written about Mont
Blanc, its botany and its glaciers, but none have

LYELL. 313

ever equalled, in truthfulness and freshness of de-
scription, the diary of Lyell. He seized upon all the
remarkable points to be noticed, and shone both as
a botanist and geologist. He, moreover, did not
forget his old entomological tastes, for he chased
butterflies in the valley of the Arve, and was de-
lighted with the Alpine rhododendrons, and the
little rammcidus glacialis. On the Grimsel Lyell
saw "some extraordinary large bare pieces of
granite-rock, which I could not account for," and
was puzzled by the redness of the snow in some
places. Afterwards on the Wengern Alp, he saw
a fine avalanche fall over a precipice on to a ledge
below. He went to the Valais to see the result of
the great flood the previous June, and witnessed
the results of the enormous force of running water,
carrying with it sand and stone, on everything
against which it came in contact.

Lyell then crossed the Alps and visited the
Italian lakes and the principal towns of Italy, but
more as an antiquarian than a geologist.

The long journey bore fruit, for the constant
proofs of changes ever progressing in nature, which
were brought before Lyell's notice, influenced his
mind in a very decided manner. He became
opposed to the convulsionist doctrines of sudden
and violent changes having occurred, and furthered
the ideas taught by Hutton, that the alterations on
the surface of the earth are slow and constant, and
have been uniform for ages. In 18 19 Lyell took
his B.A. degree at Oxford, obtaining a second class

314 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

in classical honours, and in the same year he be-
came a fellow of the Geological Society of London,
and of the Linnsean Society. On leaving Oxford he
was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and resided in London,
and studied law in a special pleader's office. His
eyes became weak, and he was advised to give up
reading for a time, and to join his father in a visit
to Rome in 1820. In 1822 Lyell was in full corres-
pondence with the most prominent geologists of
the day, and he was doing original work, for his
letters show that he was interesting himself about
the fresh water strata of the Isle of Wight, and
about the bones found in Kirkdale cave, of hyaena,
elephant, rhinoceros, etc. His enthusiasm and
ability to work were recognized in the very remark-
able selection the Geological Society made in
1823. For he was then elected one of the secre-
taries, and his friends were Mantell and Buckland.
The same year he went to Paris to see the French
geologists and Cuvier. Cuvier was very polite, and
introduced Lyell to Madlle. Duvancel, his step-
daughter, and Lyell spoke very well of her ability
and engaging manners. He met Humboldt and
Laplace and Arago, the mathematicians and
astronomers of the day.

In 1824 Lyell was interesting himself about
Dean Coneabeare's discovery of a plesiosaurus at
Lyme Regis, and the fossil was brought in triumph
to the rooms of the Geological Society, then estab-
lished at 20, Bedford Street. Then he started on a
geological excursion in the west of England with

LYELL. 315

M. Provost, and subsequently went to his birth-
place and geologized in Scotland.

Lyell was called to the bar in 1825, and went
the western circuit for two years, and in 1826 he
became a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1827
he wrote an article in the Quarterly Review, show-
ing how thoroughly he identified himself with the
school of geology that taught the necessity of
studying the past from the modern example of
slow and gradual changes on the earth by forces
which have always been in existence. In 1828
appeared his papers on the excavation of valleys by
ordinary agencies, such as the sun's heat, frost, rain,
running water and the atmosphere.

A very remarkable book on the Geology of
Central France, with especial reference to the extinct
volcanoes and lava flows of the Auvergne, was
written by Mr. Scrope, and its criticism was the
foundation of the article in the Quarterly Review
just noticed. Lyell was so impressed with the
grand descriptions in the book, that he determined
to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Murchison to accompany
him on a tour into the region. Two of Lyell's
letters to his father are so characteristic that they
may well find a place here.

C lermont-Ferrand ,

May 26///, 1828.

My dear father,

I have just returned again to Clermont,
from an expedition of five days, and we have
discovered that there is no end to the work to be

3l6 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

done In this country, and that it is of the most
interesting description. The first day was spent in
ascending some of the lofty volcanic Puys near
here. Mrs. Murchison accompanied us, and then
returned to Clermont, where she employed herself,
during our absence, in making panoramic sketches,
receiving several of the gentry and professors, to
whom he had letters, in the neighbourhood, and
collecting plants and shells, etc., while Murchison
and I, with my man, went on in a patache, a one-
horse machine on springs. We first visited Pontgi-
baud and the Sioule, to see the excavations made
by that river in the grand lava-current of the Come,
which descended from the central range, and dis-
possessed the river of its bed. The scenery was
beautiful. Just as we were leaving the place, the
peasants offered to take us to a volcano farther
down the river. As no Puy was mentioned in
Desmarest's accurate map, nor by Scrope, we
thought their account a mere fable ; but their des-
cription of the cinders, etc. was so curious, that we
had the courage to relinquish our day's scheme,
and proceed again down the river.

You may imagine our surprise when we found,
within a ride of Clermont, a set of volcanic phe-
nomena entirely unknown to Buckland, Scrope, or
the natives here. A volcanic cone, with a stream of
basaltic lava issuing out on both sides, and flowing
down to the gorge of the Sioule. This defile was
flanked on both sides by precipitous cliffs of gneiss,
and the river's passage must have been entirely

LYELL. 317

choked up for a long time. A lake was formed,
and the river wore a passage between the lava and
the granitic schist, but the former was so exces-
sively compact, that the schist evidently suffered
most. In the progress of ages, the igneous rock,
one hundred and fifty feet deep, was cut through,
and the river went on and ate its way, thirty-five,
forty-five, and in one place eighty-five feet into the
subjacent granitic beds, leaving on one bank a
perpendicular wall of basaltic lava towering over
the gneiss. In the Vivarrais, where similar phe-
nomena had been observed, Herschel had remarked
a bed of pebbles between the lava and the gneiss,
marking the ancient river-bed, but Buckland en-
deavoured to get over this difficulty by saying that
these pebbles might have covered a sloping bank
when the river filled the valley, and that this bank
may have always been high above the river bed ;
for if the sloping sides of a valley, said the
Professor, be covered with pebbles, as they often
are, and the valley is filled with lava, and then the
lava cut through and partially removed, there will
of course be a line of pebbles at the junction of the
lava and the rock beneath, but these pebbles will
not mark an ancient river bed. Now, unluckily
for the doctor in this case, he has no loophole ; an
old lead mine, said to have been worked by the
Romans, happens to have exactly laid open the line
of contact, and the pebble bed of the old river is seen
going in under the lava, horizontally, for nearly fifty
feet. This is an astonishing proof of what a river

3l8 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

can do in some thousands or hundred thousand
years by its continual wearing. No deluge could
have descended the valley without carrying away
the crater and ashes above.

Six hundred or seven hundred feet higher, is an
old plateau of basalt, and if this flowed at the
bottom of the then valley, the last work of the Sioule
is but a unit in proportion to the other. There are
several of the Clermont savans who, since they
discovered how much we were interested with this,
have given us to understand they intended to
publish on it, but no doubt they will take a year
before they launch out in the expense of a patache to
Pontgibaud. Murchison certainly keeps it up with
more energy than anyone I ever travelled with, for
Buckland, though he worked as hard, always flew
about too fast to make sure of anything. Mons.
Le Coq, the botanist, a clever young man, assures
me that the geology of the soils does not aflect the
botany of Auvergne. I shall get some specimens
from him for Dr. Hooker, I expect. None to be
bought, at least this year, for it seems there may
be hereafter. It is a wonderful fact that Glaux
maritima grows round some saline springs here.
Busset, an engineer, who is mapping Auvergne,
has forced us to dine with him to-morrow. As we
know his object to be to get geology out of us, of
which he knows nothing, M. fears it will be a bore,
but the man is evidently clever. We shall get
barometric heights from him, and a map of our little
volcanic district, and if he pumps unreasonably, I

LYELL. 319

shall find a difficulty in expressing myself in
French. We are to meet Count Le Serres there, a
gentlemanlike and well-informed naturalist, who
has a property on Mont Dore, and knows more
geology than anyone we have met here, professors
not excepted. He organized a geological society
here, and they chose Count Montlosier as president ;
but the Jesuits took alarm, and, declaring that
Montlosier had written a book against Genesis, got
the Prefect and Mayor and Government to oppose,
and at last put the thing down ; at least it merged
in the regular scientific Etablissement de la Ville,
and Montlosier is just coming out with a book
against the Jesuits, a more popular subject in France
at present than geology. We are to visit him at
his chateau near Mont Dore. We like the people
and the country.

Believe me, your affectionate son,

Charles Lyell.

TO HIS father.

Bains de Mont Dore, Auvergne.

Jiine bth, 1882.

My dear father,

I am at this moment arrived here, after
passing three delightful days at Count de Mont-
losier's, an old man of seventy-four, in full
possession of faculties of no mean order, and of an
imagination as lively as a poet's of twenty-five. I
stayed a day longer than the Murchisons, as I was
determined to have one more trial to find a junction

320 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

between the granite of the Puy chain and the fresh
water formations of the Limagne, and I actually-
found it ; and my day's work alone will throw a new
light on the history of this remarkable country. I
believe most of the granite to have made its appear-
ance at the surface at a later period than even the
fresh water tertiary beds have, though they contain
the remains of quadrupeds. The scenery of Mont
Dore is that of an Alpine valley, deep, with tall fir
woods, high aiguilles above, half covered with snow,
and cataracts and waterfalls. A watering-place
with good views at the bottom of the valley. I
shall send Hall back from here, as, although he has
been useful, I do not think the advantage will over-
balance the additional expense. Le Coq has
promised some plants for certain, and Hall has
done pretty well in insects.

Believe me, your affectionate son,

Charles Lyell.

Lyell was not sparing of criticism so far as his
friend Murchison's habits were concerned, as may
be gleaned in the following letter : —

TO HIS MOTHER.

Bains de Mont Dore, Auvergne.

June iiih, 1828.

My dear mother,

We have been so actively employed, I
may really say so laboriously, that I assure you I
can with great difficulty find a moment to write a

LYELL. 32 1

letter. This morning we got off, after breakfast at
five o'clock, on horseback, to return from St. Amand
to this : arrived at seven o'clock. But one day we
rode fifty-five miles, which I shall take care shall be
the last experiment of that kind, as even the old
Leicestershire fox-hunter was nearly done up with
it. But I have really gained strength so much,
that I believe I and my eyes were never in such
condition before ; and I am sure that six hours in
bed, which is all we allow, and exercise all day long
for the body, and geology for the mind, with plenty
of the vin du pays, which is good here, is the best
thing that can be invented in this world for my
health and happiness. Murchison must have been
intended for a very strong man, if the sellers of
drugs had not enlisted him into their service, so that
he depends on them for his existence to a frightful
extent, yet withal he can get through what would
knock up most men who never need the doctor.
He has only given in one day and a half yet. On
one occasion we were on an expedition together,
and as a stronger dose was necessary than he had
with him, I was not a little alarmed at finding there
was no pharmacy in the place, but at last we went
to a nunnery, where Mdlle. la Sup^rieuse sold all
medicines without profit — positively a young, clever,
and rather good-looking lady, who hoped my friend
would think better of it, as the quantity would kill
six Frenchmen. M. was cured, and off the next
morning, as usual. The mischief is, that he has
naturally a weak though a sound stomach, and if
I. Y

322 HEROES OF SCIE^X•E.

he possessed a more than ordinary share of self-
denial, and was very prudent, and after much
exercise did not eat a good dinner when set before
him — if, in short, he would take the advice which
many find it easy to give him, he would be well.
He has much talent for original observation in
geology, and is indefatigable, so that we make much
way, an 1 are thrown so much in the way of the
people, high and low, by means of our letters of
introduction, and our pursuits, that I am getting
large materials, which I hope I shall find means of
applying. Indeed, I really think I am most
profitably employed on this tour, and as long as
things go on as well as they do now, I should be
very sorry to leave off; particularly as, from our
plan of operation, which is that of comparison of
the structure of different parts of the country, we
work on with a continually increasing power, and
in the last week have with the same exertion done
at least twice as much in the way of discovery, and
in enlarging our knowledge of what others had
done, as in any preceding. I expect it will be at
least three weeks before we can have done with
Central France, and then we hope to work south
towards Nice, down the Rhone, keeping always in
analogous formations, and then to the Vicentin, if
possible, though this is very uncertain, as we can
never see far before us, either as to time or place,
directing our course according to the new lights we
are gaining.

We shall leave this place in a day or two. I like

LYELL. 323

it well enough, but it is certainly too early in the
season to enjoy it ; and Mrs. Murchison suffers from
the cold and damp, though she has not often com-
plained in this tone.

Mont Dore is partially covered with snow, and
almost always with clouds, and the transition in
coming up here from the low country is violent.
Yesterday we rode up from the climate of Italy to
that of Scotland. It is the most varied and
picturesque country imaginable. There are in-
numerable old ruins for sketches, with lakes,
cascades, and different kinds of wood, so that we
wonder more and more that the English have not
found it out. The peasantry are very obliging,
industrious, well-fed, and clothed, and to all appear-
ance are the very happiest I ever saw. We have
crossed the chain of Puys, the Limagne, and the
valleys leading from Mont Dore, in all directions.
The people in the higher regions begin to talk
French — at least there are generally some who
have served in the armies, and their children catch
some from them. Their own language has a good
deal of the old Provencal in it, and a great many
of the terminations are Italian. In short, we often
find a demand in Italian succeed when French
misses fire ; but all our ammunition often fails to
produce any impression. The population is dense,
and bears no other resemblance to other parts of
France that ever I saw. In the mountains a large
portion do not believe that Napoleon is dead,
especially the old soldiers. There is an almost

324 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

entire want of gentry here, but as it does not arise
from absenteeism, but from the great sub-division
of property, it evidently produces no ill effects on
the character and well-being of the people.

Give my love to all at Kinnordy, and believe me
Your affectionate son,

Charles Lyell.

After visiting the south of France with Mur-
chison, Lyell prepared to cross the Alps and to see
Vesuvius, he being impressed with the necessity
of studying that grand modern example in order to
understand, perfectly, the extinct volcanoes they
had been studying in the Auvergne. He wrote
his father — " I scarcely despair now, so much do
these evidences of modern action increase upon
us as we go south (towards the more recent vol-
canic seat of action) of proving the positive
identity of the causes now operating with those of
former times." This was always his point, and it
certainly was not Murchison's.

When at Vesuvius, Lyell recognized the similarity
of some very old volcanic dykes of Scotland with
those recently exposed in the old crater. Etna
was visited, and he was delighted at finding sea-
shells, resembling those now living on the floor of
the Mediterranean close by, some three hundred
feet above sea level. Whilst at Naples, and in the
midst of the highly suggestive scenery of the
beautiful neighbourhood, Lyell wrote to Murchison
a very characteristic letter, which should be well

LYELL. 325

pondered over even by wealthy men who enter
into the studies of nature, and which might be
read with benefit by those people who on this not
over civilized earth, hold the purse-strings of the
world and treat scientific teachers with gross
meanness. With all his advantages Lyell could
not undertake the research which made him
famous, which has tended to elevate our conception
of the laws of nature, and which has done so much
to lead geologists along the right path, without
caring much for pecuniary matters.

He wrote, "I will tell you fairly that it is at
present of no small consequence to me to get a
respectable sum for my volume, not only to cover
expenses for present and future projected cam-
paigns, but because my making my hobby pay the
additional costs which it entails, will alone justify
my pursuing it with a mind sufficiently satisfied
with itself, and so to feel independent and free to
indulge in the enthusiasm necessary for success.
I shall never hope to make money by geology, but
not to lose, and tax others for my amusement;
and unless I can secure this, it would, in my cir-
cumstances, be selfish in me to devote myself as
much as I hope to do to it." These sentiments
did Lyell great honour. " My work is in part
written, and all planned. It will not pretend to
give even an abstract of all that is known in geo-
logy, but it will endeavour to establish the principle
of reasoning on the science. All my geology will
come in as illustrative of my views of those

326 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

principles, and as evidence strengthening the sys-
tem necessarily arising out of the admission of such
principles, which as you know, are neither more nor
less than, that no causes whatever have, from the
earliest time to which we can look back to the
present, ever acted, but those 7iow acting ; and that
they never acted with different degrees of energy
from that which they now exert." If I can but
earn the wherewith to carry on the war, or rather,
its extraordiiiary costs, depend upon it I will waste
no time in book-making for lucre's sake."

Lyell's long-expected book on the " Principles of
Geology" was published in 1830, and it made a
very considerable sensation, and was warmly com-
bated and abused. Now it is admitted as the most
conclusive and useful of introductory books, fit
for a youth, and eminently good in its tone. Then
the man, ever on the move, left for the Pyrenees,
and studied the formations there, and especially
devoted himself to the explanation of ripple-marks
in the hundreds of feet of rock, and noticed the
effects of water-borne and air-carried sand in
accumulating flats of ripples one over the other.
In 1 83 1 Lyell accepted the position of Professor of
Geology in King's College, London, and he gave
courses of lectures there in 1832 and 1833 > ^^^d he
became engaged to Mary, the eldest daughter of
Mr. Leonard Horner, a geologist of considerable
reputation, and a thoroughly liberal-minded man.
Mr. Horner was a great friend of Lyell's before the
engagement; and was a most painstaking man and

LYELL. 327

a great manager at the Geological Society. Lyell's
letters to Miss Horner are most interesting, and
show how admirable a woman she was and how she
stimulated him to follow out his great destiny.
His work on the " Principles " became a great
pecuniary success, and he laboured hard at King's
College, and was much annoyed at the decision
of the council at the College, not to allow
women to attend his lectures, which were a
great success. Married, Lyell started for Ger-
many, the Rhine, and Switzerland. Coming home
to London, he set to work at his lectures at the
Royal Institution, where ladies were admitted,
and at King's College, where they were not. He
had two hundred and fifty people to hear his intro-
ductory lecture at King's College, and it dwindled
down to fifteen in a {ew days, not from any want
of care or excellence in Lyell, who was ever bitter
against the establishment for their refusal to advance
female education. He retired from the professor-
ship as soon as he found that it interfered with his
researches, and never again took any part in
academical teaching. The trouble he took about
his lectures was great, and he went to great expense
in having diagrams well drawn. His retirement
was a great loss to the College, which now admits
ladies to certain lectures. In 1834, Lyell travelled
in Sweden and examined into the rise of the land
in Scandinavia, and whilst enjoying his hard geolo-
gical work — for he was well received by everybody,
^nd taken to see everything — his letters show how

328 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

he missed his gentle and sympathizing wife. On
his return home Lyell received one of the Royal
Society medals for his work on the " Principles of
Geology," and in 1838 became President of the
Geological Society. About this time his atten-
tion was strongly drawn to the relative numbers of
living species found in the strata which had been
formed during the last geological or tertiary
age. In working at Sicily he had found that in
the latest beds in which the shells were hardly
fossilised, all the species were still living. That is
to say, he collected shells which were of course
dead, but they were similar to others which were
alive on the floor of the sea close by. The indi-
vidual had died, but the kind or species was still
alive. He examined the latest strata in England,
the crag of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and found
that the proportion of recent shells — that is to say,
of dead individuals belonging to living species — is
great. Some of the shells belonged to kinds
which are not now living, and are extinct. He
wrote, " I think we may lay it down as a rule, that
if any given tertiary deposit in which we have
found a few species of shells only, of which one
half, or a third, or even less, are recent, and those
recent ones inhabit the seas immediately adjoining,
the formation will be pliocene." This word was
one of three invented by Dr. Whewell, of Cam-
bridge, at Lyell's suggestion to explain the gradual
development of the recent animals and plants
during the past history of the globe. The other

LYELL. 329

terms were " miocene " and " eocene." The most
ancient deposit which was supposed by Lyell to
contain evidences of existing genera was at the
dawn of the last great geological period, the
tertiary. It was called eocene from r/wc, dawn,
Kotvog, recent. The next deposits overlying these
older ones contained, according to his estimate,
seventeen per cent, of living species, all the rest being
extinct ; and they were called miocene, from judov,
less, and Kalvog, recent ; expressing a minor propor-
tion of recent species to that found in the topmost
and most recent tertiary deposits. These last con-
tain a large proportion of recent species, and are
called pliocene, ttXeiov, more, and Koivog, recent. It
was a grand theory, which has remained almost
unaltered, and it influenced the progress of geology,
for it plainly inferred that the living things of the
present have been linked with those of the past
time by direct descent ; that many forms of life have
become extinct, and that there is some wonderful
law relating to this.

About this time many were the geological
heresies, and the lovers of the notion of the violent
actions of nature evolved theories about volcanoes
and the occurrence of vast waves to account for
the presence of the great masses of rock which
are found strewn far and wide and away from their
sources. These Lyell successfully antagonized.
He then published the "Elements of Geology,"
and his time was fully occupied in the meetings of
the Geological Society, in criticising work, and in
genial scientific society.

330 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

In the autumn of 1841 Lyell crossed the Atlantic,
and spent thirteen months in the United States,
Canada, and Nova Scotia. He worked hard as an
observer and recorder, and his comparisons between
the strata in the New and Old World are full of
interest. Writing from Philadelphia to his father-
in-law, Mr. Horner, he says, " Here I am working
away in quarries of greensand and picking up
belemnites and other cretaceous fossils ; " and
then to Dr. Mantcll, "After staying two days we
went by New York and the Hudson to Albany,
where I began my explorings in the silurian strata,
and from whence I examined the valley of the
Mohawk. The Falls of Niagara were as beautiful
as I expected, perhaps scarcely so grand, but in
geological interest far beyond my most sanguine
hopes. So I shall send a paper on the proofs of
their recession to the Geological Society. I will
not dwell on them now. After spending some
time there, I examined seriatim, all the silurian
groups and the old red and coal on the borders of
Pennsylvania. Returning to Albany, I went south
to Philadelphia, and spent four days in collecting
in the different divisions of the greensand, and in
New Jersey. The analogy of the genera, and even
of the species of the European chalk, is most
striking."

One of his duties in the United States, was to
give a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute,
at which his audiences amounted to two thousand.
He also went north, and made some most important

LYELL. 331

investigations with Dr. Dawson, then a compara-
tively unknown school missionary struggling to
learn something about nature, and now one of the
most distinguished geologists in the world. They
dug out roots called by fossilists stigmariae, which
once supported huge trees called sigillariae in the
days of the coal formation, and they measured
foot by foot many hundreds of yards of the cliffs
of the now celebrated place called Toggins, in
Nova Scotia. There they found rows of trees, one
over the other, erect, and indicating that, when the
part of the earth now cut into by the sea and
exposed as a cliff was formed, there was a series of
ages, each having its forest, each of which was over-
whelmed, and thus forest after forest accumulated.
Amongst the trees were some hollow ones, and
they contained little fossils, such as shells and
scales. They were objects of interest, but it
was not until later on that Lyell and Dawson
saw their importance. This subterranean forest
exceeds in extent and quantity of timber all that
have been found in Europe put together. The new
deposit of red sand of the numerous estuaries there
afforded them endless instruction. " At this place,
Truro, the tide is said to rise seventy-five feet,
and we see the bottom of a deep salt-water sea, its
rippled sands, shells and holes of Mya and Tellifta
and their tracks, footmarks of birds and worms, the
manner in which the clays crack and are marked
with the rain, and sometimes shells included recently
in solid models of claystone. I have also learned

332 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

more about the geological effects of drifting ice in
the last ten days than in all the Canadian tour."

Lyell returned to England, and, after a short
rest, started for the north of Ireland. He wrote to
his sister: "We have just returned from a walk
over the grand pavement (Giant's Causeway), the
effect of which was as picturesque as the evening
sun and some white breakers rolling and foaming
over the black rocks could make it. Much as I
have been pleased with the sight, it strikes me that
there are parts of Staffa away from Fingal's Cave,
and which travellers have seldom leisure to visit,
which are even finer in precisely the same style.
The geology of Antrim is very interesting — so many
formations, such as chalk, green sand, lias, new red
— and the coal being represented by such distinctly
characterized and yet such thin sets of strata, com-
pared to the same groups elsewhere ; and then the
grand trap or basaltic mass covering and cutting
through them all."

Often slightly political in his ideas, Lyell wrote
much about the Irish peasantry, and spoke of them
as the quick, obliging, and fine-looking natives of
the Green Island. He remarked, in 1843, "One
cannot help fearing that the anti-English spirit has
sunk deep into the hearts of the millions here, for
they read nothing but O'Connell's newspapers,
from which he artfully excludes, without appearing
to them to do so, every other foreign or domestic
topic of interest except repeal and Irish grievances
— a great proportion of them now bygone."

LVELL. 333

He kept steadily at work preparing his American
travels for publication, and in a note to a friend
regarding the nature of coal, he instanced the swamps
of Virginia. " The Virginian morasses allow, under
a hot sun, great accumulations of black vegetable
matter, nearly like peat, and which might make
coal. The shade of Cupresstis distichi, Thuya, and
water oaks shut out the sun, and ferns and mosses
draw in the damp air beneath, while the heat causes
evaporation, and evaporation cold. One swamp
which I saw is forty miles long by twenty broad.
Thousands of prostrate trees are in the peat."
Some investigators held that the atmosphere must
have contained a large amount of carbonic acid
gas during the ages in which coal was being formed
out of decaying vegetation, but Lyell, adhering to
his strictly uniform itarian views, denied this, and
considered the Virginian swamps to be explanatory
of the formation of coal.

Lyell went to see the skeleton, brought by a
German named Koch from the Missouri, of a very
large mastodon, and was wonderfully amused to
notice how this savant had made it up out of frag-
ments. " He has turned the huge tusks the wrong
way — horizontally, has made the first pair of ribs
into collar-bones, and has intercalated several
spurious dorsal and tail vertebrae, and has placed
the toe-bones wrong to prove, what he really
believes, that it was web-footed. I think he is a
mixture of an enthusiast and an impostor, but more
of the former, and amusingly ignorant. His mode

334 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

of advertising is a thousand dollars reward for
anyone who will prove that the bones of his Mis-
sourium are made of wood. He is soon to take
them to London, when you will have a treat, and
see a larger femur (thigh-bone) than that of Igua-
nodon." He was delighted with the Americans.

Lyell revisited America in 1845, and on return-
ing across the Atlantic in 1846, narrowly escaped
shipwreck on an iceberg ; but he made an interest-
ing observation about one great berg. " It had a
large rock, twelve feet square, on the top, and
much gravel and sand on its side. The bergs
were from fifty to four hundred feet in height,
pyramidal, pinnacled, dome-shaped, single-peaked,
double-peaked, flat-topped, and of every form and
most picturesque, and only a quarter of a mile
off us."

The lesson was not lost, for Lyell had thus
ocular proof concerning how stones of huge size and
gravity, can travel far from their proper location.
And as these icebergs capsize or melt he was con-
firmed in his views that many deposits of huge
stones and gravels in the form of '' drift" have been
produced in this manner.

Having now attained great eminence, Lyell
began to write and agitate about the scientific
teaching of the Universities, and his opinion of the
decidedly unprogressive character of them was
proved to be correct when only four heads of
houses out of twenty-four were at Oxford to re-
ceive the British Association for the Advancement

LYELL. 33S

of Science. He urged strongly the necessity of
placing the lay teacher on the same pecuniary
level as the clergy. Moreover, he made a vigorous
attempt to have truly scientific presidents of the
Royal Society, and not only noblemen of high and
royal standing. The Queen honoured Lyell with
her regard, and Prince Albert used to get him to
talk about America and the Americans, listening
always with great interest. He was knighted for
his distinguished services to science, and the con-
ferring of this dignity pleased the whole scientific
world.

In 1849 Sir Charles Lyell was re-elected pre-
sident of the Geological Society, and the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Dr. Sumner, attended at the annual
dinner given on the occasion. After the expiration
of his presidency, Lyell again went to the United
States, and, returning, visited Teneriffe, the Grand
Canary, and Palma, arriving in England in 1854.

In 1855 ^^^ the two following years Sir Charles
and Lady Lyell travelled much on the continent,
and always with a view of studying existing nature
so as to comprehend the past. He was gratified by
finding that most of the rising teachers in Germany
were using his books as text books for their lectures^
and that the doctrines of Hutton he had elaborated
were so much appreciated. In Switzerland, Lyell
interested himself more than ever about the great
remains of former ice action on the rocks. He was
at one time disposed to believe that certain masses
of mud containing angular stones, derived from a

33^ HEROES OF SCIENCE.

distance, could have been produced by the sea, but
not finding any remains of marine animals, or
evidence of such action as the ice would produce in
rounding and watervvearing stone, he began to
examine the influence of glaciers in wearing rocks
and carrying the rubbish down with them. He was
of course aware that there had been an age of cold
in Switzerland, corresponding to the glacial epoch
of Europe to the north, and he was therefore
prepared to find some proofs of the former great
extension of glaciers beyond their present limits.
He was disposed to believe that the Alps were
higher than they now are in that age of cold. In
order to account for the former action of ice and the
production of huge moraines, in comparison with
which those now found at the glacier foot are
pigmies, Lyell wrote : " In the glacial period, when
the weight of ice was enormously greater, when in
the region of the Alps there was so little melting,
when glaciers at present only ten, fifteen, and
twenty miles long, and from three hundred to one
thousand feet deep, were fifty to one hundred, and
even one hundred and fifty miles long, and four
thousand feet deep (and if there is any truth at all
in the generally received theory of the old Swiss
glaciers, such must have been their gigantic dimen-
sions), one may readily grant that the pressure and
friction were so much in excess of what we now see
as to explain the contrast between the ice work
done in the olden times, and that accomplished in
our own days, to say nothing of the probably dis-

LYELL. 337

proportionate length of the periods compared." He
noticed an old terminal moraine, in advance of the
nevv one of the Rhone glacier, covered with wild
p'.ants, some in full flower, and cut through in two
places by the river ; its height was only fifteen feet,
and its width ninety feet. He went underneath the
Viesch glacier in the Upper Vallais, and beyond it ;
in consequence of its having melted much, he saw
a rounded and domed surface of granite, smooth,
and with straight furrows a quarter of an inch deep
exactly in the direction of the onward movement
of the glacier. On the Ruffelhorn, on the right
lateral moraine, that is on the surface of the ice
close to the rocks, he saw a splendid mass of granite,
angular in shape, and measuring fifty-nine feet long,
forty-nine feet wide, and forty-two feet high. Its
sides were polished and furrowed. This huge mass
was being carried slowly down, by the glacier, and
will be deposited at its foot some day or other.
Once it formed a part of the valley side, and it
fell on to the glacier, whose flanks had scrubbed it for
many a long day. He particularly noticed how
the glaciers had been advancing of late years (just
as they are now receding).

Lyell followed out these researches on the south
of the Alps, and he first of all made many excursions,
accompanied by Gastaldi, one of the best of the
scientific men of Turin, and by Michelotti, in order
to compare the shells which are found fossil in the
middle tertiary strata on the south of the Alps, with
those of the molasse of Switzerland to the north. He

I. z

SS^ HEROES OF SCIENCE.

found that these strata, separated by the great mass
of the mountains, resembled each other somewhat
mineralogically as well as in their fossils, but he
was not able to make out that they were exactly of
the same geological age, although it was highly
probable. He wrote on the glaciers ancient and
modern of the southern slopes of the Alps, and in
relation to the former — "A comparison also of the
extinct glaciers of the Italian and Swiss sides of
the Alps can better be made from Turin than from
any other place. Before my arrival I had seen,
on the banks of the Lago Maggiore, some good
examples of erratics and of moraines which had
come from the Simplon, but these, as you might
suppose, a priori are far inferior to those which
have descended from the Val d'Aosta, or which
belong to the mighty glacier derived from the com-
bined snows of the Mont Blanc and the Mont
Rosa group of Alpine heights. This glacier,
although perhaps of less gigantic dimensions than
that of the Rhone, has certainly left, as Gastaldi
first pointed out in a memoir on the subject, a far
more imposing monument of itself on the plains of
the Po, than have the extinct glaciers of the Rhone
or the Rhine, in the lower country of Switzerland."
He noticed that "J. D. Forbes has well shown in his
book on the Alps, that a glacier is a peculiarly sensi-
tive instrument for measuring the average of heat
and cold, and that every slight difference of tempera-
ture causes it to increase or lessen in height and
length." And pursuing the argument, remarks that

LYELL. 339

as geologists had shown from the nature of the
fossil remains in lately formed gravels, that arctic
animals lived far south in Europe, shortly before
the existing state of things, we ought to find
evidences of the cold climate which allowed those
animals to live so far south. These evidences are at
hand in the remains of the glaciers, which in those
days extended far lower than they do now, and
were grander in extent. Thus a lofty mound or
ridge, two thousand feet high, called the Serra,
running into the great alluvial flat of the River Po,
where maize and mulberries grow, is a huge ter-
minal moraine of an ancient glacier. Ice reigned
supreme there in the glacial period, and brought
down the stone from the distant hills, and deposited
it on the Serra. In Forfarshire, Lyell had noticed the
peculiar contorted appearance of the beds of clay,
gravel and sand of glacial formation, and also in
the mud cliffs of Norfolk. He v/as anxious to
know whether any of the ancient glacial heaps or
moraines of the country south of the Alps, showed
similar indications of pressure and forcing along by
ice. " It happened that a railway w^as making from
Turin to Ivrea, and although they cut through the
lowest part of the terminal moraines near Mazzi
they have thought it worth while to make a tunnel,
through which we walked." Near the entrance, " I
was delighted," wrote Lyell, " to see that curious
folding of the strata, which will cause the same
beds to be here pierced by a perpendicular shaft,
yet without the beds having participated in the

340 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

movement." Full of this important subject he wrote
fully on it.

" In order to appreciate the distinctive character
of this colossal moraine, you must reflect on the
uniformity and evenness of the vast plain of the
Po all round it, for, although really inclined from
the Alps, it looks as level as the sea ; then fancy
the great mounds sloping up at angles of 20° and
30° to heights of 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 feet ;
then consider that at the very extremity, as near
Caluso, there are blocks of protogine which have
come one hundred miles from Mont Blanc ; also
that the whole assemblage of stones is not like that
which has issued from the Susa, or from any other
valley, but confined to rocks such as now strictly
belong to the basin of the Dora Baltea ; also that
the pebbles and fragments of stone, if of ser-
pentine or any easily striable rock, are all striated,
at least nineteen-twentieths of the whole, whereas
in a recent glacier which has only travelled ten
miles, you might only find one in twenty of the
same stone striated ; and lastly, think of the nar-
row vomitory which has disgorged this enormous
quantity of material, the ravine above Ivrea being
as obviously the source of the whole, as is the crater
of Vesuvius the point from which its lavas have
issued. When Gastaldi read his paper to the Geo-
logical Society at Paris, written jointly by him and
Martens, Elie de Beaumont, who had many years
before visited the ground, objected entirely to their
conclusion that it was a moraine, but I never saw

LYELL. 341

a stronger or more satisfactory case. But in the
same paper the authors hazarded an opinion that
although the old Alpine moraines stopped short
after going a few leagues from the Alps, yet at
some former time erratics had been conveyed to
the summit of the Collina, just as " Pierre a Bot "
and other blocks had been carried by the old Rhone
glacier to the flanks of the Jura. Now when I
read this at Zurich, I immediately recollected that
in the valley of the Bormida, when I passed from
Savona to Alessandria in 1828, 1 had been astonished
at some very huge erratics of serpentine in the
Miocene. Having never seen blocks of such enor-
mous dimensions in any tertiary formation, I was
relieved in 1828 at finding, in some spots on the
Bormida, projecting fragments of serpentine in places
which the erosion of the valleys had exposed to
view. I concluded that they may not have travelled
far, and when I saw some large blocks on the
Superga (in 1828), I immediately suspected that as
that hill consisted of beds of the same formation,
the blocks might have been washed out of the
Miocene not far off. I therefore now suggested
this view to Gastaldi, and found that he was by no
means tenacious of his printed theory, although
he said that the blocks were many of them angular,
of very great size, and accompanied by Alpine
loam. We then examined the beds of the Superga,
both those dipping to the north-west, and those to
the south-east, and on both sides of this anticlinal
are strata containing fragments of stone of various

z 3

342 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

kinds, some not known in the neighbouring Alps or
Apennines, from two to eight feet in diameter. On
our ascent to the Superga I saw a thickness of sixty
feet regularly stratified of this conglomerate, in
which were fragments consisting chiefly of ser-
pentine, but some of limestone, others of protogine
granite, and one of the latter angular and eight
feet in diameter. In less than half an hour's search,
I found two of the serpentine and one of the lime-
stone pebbles with scratches, which would be called
glacial if they were found in a modern moraine,
though not such as you would select for examples
for a museum. Still I searched this year in some
recent moraines quite as long without finding better.
As to the age of the beds, there is no doubt of
their belonging to the Lower Miocene, the marine
fossils of which we collected in strata both below
and above them. These enormous blocks, there-
fore, were brought into their present position by
causes which acted in the Miocene age. I know of
no agency but that of ice which could have quietly
let them down upon subjacent beds of undisturbed
fine marl and sand. Hence I conclude that there
was floating ice in the Lower Miocene period, and
if the few scratches I saw really imply glacial
striation, the ice-rafts were probably derived from
glaciers which came down from mountains border-
ing the glacial sea ; perhaps from the Alps, for that
chain must have existed before the origin of a large
part of the Lower Miocene. I have kept the speci-
mens I found of these Miocene striated stones to

LYELL. 343

show Ramsay, who will be interested in hearing,
that in spite of some Brazilian genera of trees and
insects, and not a few palms, and some reptiles of
good size, and many other fossil genera found on
both sides of the Alps and supposed to imply a
subtropical climate, I am not afraid to appeal to
ice as the only known cause capable of stratifying
these great masses in the manner in which they
occur."

The evidence of former changes in climate was
thus strongly impressed on Lyell's mind, and the
astonishing truth began to be strongly impressed
upon geologists by him, that not only has the area
of Europe witnessed ages of tropical heat, but also
ages of considerable winter's cold, and that there
has been more than one glacial period.

Lyell visited Vesuvius and Etna in 1858, and how
carefully he noticed every detail of the mountain
structure, and how little he cared about " roughing
it " may be gleaned from extracts from his diary
sent to his wife : —

"Etna, Casa Inglese, Sept. 21, 1858. — Got off
with two guides and two muleteers and four mules,
at half past seven, in bright sunshine, from Nicolosi,
and after a beautiful sunny ride of three hours
through wooded craters, protected from the heat by
my umbrella, was gradually enveloped in clouds.
I saw a lava stream where the oaks had been sur-
rounded by lava, which had taken the form both
of upright and prostrate trunks, surrounding them
with tuff, and the wood being burned up they are

344 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

now cylinders of scoriaceous lava. After a couple
of hours we got above the clouds, when about eight
thousand feet high, but not till my hands were
numbed, for I could not believe for a long time in
the necessity of my putting on a cloak. After
reaching this place, I set out out with Angelo for
the top of Etna, leaving Guiseppe to cook. We
had now and then a drifting cloud, but on the whole
splendid sunshine. I saw the spot at the foot of
the great line where the Catanians quarried ice
from under a current of lava. My guide saw the
same thing some six years ago, while the eruption
of 1852 was in progress, in August and September :
the sand and lava ten feet thick, and four feet of
ice below, and bottom not seen. Not far above the
ice I warmed my hands at a fumarole where the
steam and some sulphuretted hydrogen were given
off at such a heat that I was obliged to be careful
how I put my fingers in. This welcome heat
enabled me to write. When we reached the edge
of the crater the whole of Sicily was hidden except
the higher part of Etna, between us and Monta-
gunoli. But Lipari and Stromboli stood out in the
sea very conspicuously. I made a rough sketch of
the two craters ; the smaller one has lately, I believe,
fallen, and shows a section of some of the hori-
zontal beds of lava, with which it had been filled
nearly to the top. It was a considerable exertion
climbing and going half round it after a seven
hours' ride, and this makes the Casa Inglese, which
is the roughest place I was ever in, seem a hospitable

LYELL. 345

mansion, as it saves our returning. The wind is
whistling round and somewhat through it, but
Dr. Guiseppe, I hear, has made it weather tight.
There is no chimney and we have charcoal burners,
but if the wind always blows like this I am not, at
any rate, guaranteed from asphyxia."

He got a list of one hundred and fifty shells of
the newer pliocene clay on which Etna rests. Nine-
tenths of them he found were of species belonging
to the present floor of the Mediterranean Sea, and
this, to his delight, confirmed what he wrote, and
what has already been alluded to, regarding this
deposit on a former occasion. At Bronte, Lyell saw
the place where a crowd assembled in 1842, to see
the lava flow into a great artificial reservoir of
water. The torrent of melted stone came forward
with a front of more than thirty feet high, and
falling suddenly into the water, produced for a
while no effect whatever, as if, as in the white hot
metal in Butigny's experiment, it required to cool
down before it could cause explosion. At length
it went off suddenly, and everybody but one or two
out of fifty or more in number was killed.

During the years of his journeys in America and
Europe, Lyell had paid special attention to the
changes which were occurring on the surface of
the earth amongst the rocks and hills, valleys,
rivers, and sea-shores. He had dealt with inani-
mate nature largely. About the year 1859 ^e
began to consider the changes which have occurred
in the living things of the past, and to direct his

346 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

attention to the subject of the antiquity of man and
to the possible origin of species. He wrote to a
friend in his usual half-jesting manner : " I have
been much occupied with another geological subject
besides that which your niece, Ellen Twisleton,
irreverently calls the proving her to be first cousin
to a turnip (a violet she should have said) ; I mean
the antiquity of man as implied by the flint hatchets
of Amiens, undoubtedly contemporaneous with the
mammoth, and also the human skeletons of certain
caves near Liege, which I believe to be of cor-
responding age. I regard the pyramids as things
of yesterday in comparison of those relics." Lyell
struggled long in his mind against the theory of
the great age of man on the earth, and converted
himself to the belief in it, and in 1861 he wrote,
after examining the associated remains of human
art and extinct animals, such as the mammoth and
hairy rhinoceros in England, that "the late dis-
coveries at Heme Bay and Reculver convince me
that man inhabited England when the Thames was
a tributary of the Rhine." He published a work
on the antiquity of man, and then began to interest
himself about the great age when ice reigned
supreme over much of the northern hemisphere.
Writing to his nephew he states : " On a hill called
Moel Tryfaen (in North Wales), at a height of
thirteen hundred feet above the sea, I found twenty
species of fossil shells, all of living species, in sand
and gravel fifty feet thick. You would have known
most of them familiarly." Some of these shells

LYELL. 347

were of kinds now living close by in the sea, but
others of kinds now living within the arctic circle.
" The shells show that Snowdon and all the highest
hills which are in the neighbourhood of Moel
Tryfaen were mere islands in the sea at a com-
paratively late period, or when these living molluscs
were flourishing."

The researches of Lyell and Dawson in Nova
Scotia have been noticed, and it is interesting to
know that they were rewarded by the discovery of
an air-breathing mollusc, and of several small
amphibians of the age of the coal period, in the
hollow of a stump of a tree, which dated back to
that very ancient time. After the death of his
friend Murchison, although the effects of age and
a life of hard study were not unfelt, Lyell followed
with great care the researches of Dr. Hicks relating
to the oldest rocks of England. Lyell was in-
tensely interested at the discovery of highly
organized invertebrate animals in sandstones and
shales, which hitherto had only yielded some
doubtful worm tracks and impressions of plants,
and he recognized the truth that no evidences of
the beginning of living things were presented to
the geologist. The researches of Carpenter,
Thomson, and Agassiz concerning the natural
philosophy and natural history of the deep sea
were gratefully acknowledged by Lyell, as most
important contributions to science, and the author
of this memoir has a lively remembrance of
Sir Charles's intense excitement when the news

348 HEROES OF SCIENCE.

first came that the sea was very cold at great
depths.

Years passed on, and honours came to the hard-
working, truth-loving man. He was elected pre-
sident of the British Association, and was made
a baronet. His sight began to fail, and it was a
constant anxiety to many who saw him about
London, to witness his constant exposure to danger.
Availing himself of an excellent secretary, he still
corresponded largely, and attended scientific meet-
ings. But the end was at hand, and he lost his
well-loved wife and then his brother. Dying from
the results of a fall, Lyell was buried in Westminster
Abbey, as a representative man of science. He
was a brilliant example of a man who sought out
truth, and braved public opinion for its sake, and
who enlightened the world, caring little for ease
and luxury, and assisting every fellow-labourer in
the great science of geology.

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