through comparison, may be made a theme of instructive discourse, whilst there are many of the most interesting formations, both fossiliferous and unfossiliferous, within the limits of a day's excursion. The variety and beauty of the mineral contents of the igneous rocks around Edinburgh have long been famous, and have imbued every geologist, who received his early training in this University, with a respect for mineralogical evidence, and a habit of readily perceiving and using mineral characters-a great advantage. "The tastes of most men can be traced back to the habits of their youth, and these habits are, in a great measure, moulded by the circumstances, physical as well as intellectual, amid which that youth has been passed. Grand scenery suggests grand thoughts, and every ennobling thought elevates, not merely momentarily, but permanently, the mind in which it glows. It is a great gain to a university to be placed like this, amid scenes of unrivalled beauty. The youth whose hours of relaxation are spent in the presence of those magnificent prospects, so rife and many around us, carries with him in after-life the memory of their beauty and their grandeur. The man who has gazed upon and felt the worthy delineation of a glorious landscape, a grand Turner or a luxuriant Claude, never forgets the genial, wholesome, glow of admiration that pervades his spirit at the time. How much more must he feel this ennobling sensation when he gazes on the reality of majestic landscape? And if, with all this precious accumulation of the vast and beautiful, there be combined that which is admirable in the minute—if nature, in her smallest elements, be prolific in objects of study and reflection, it is not to be wondered at that this University has been a hot-bed of naturalists, and that their philosophy has been one catholic in essence and far-extending in its range." And then his graceful conclusion and eulogium on his old master and predecessor : "After many years of study, and travel, and precious opportunities for acquiring experience, I return to the city where I was first initiated into the science of nature, and where within these walls I learned those lessons of patient inquiry and minute observation, to whose working and training I am indebted for the place that I now hold among the Professors of my Alma Mater. To my illustrious predecessor and master who passed from amongst us ripe in years, honours, and fame, so lately, I gratefully record my acknowledgments for the encouragement of those tastes and the founding of that knowledge which have proved to me a chief delight. Who, that in time past was his pupil and found pleasure in the study of any department of Natural History, can ever forget his enthusiastic zeal, his wonderful acquaintance with scientific literature, his affection for all among his friends and pupils who manifested a sincere interest in his favourite studies. When, in after life, their fates scattered them far and wide over the world, some settling amid the civilized obscurity of rural seclusion; some rambling to the far ends of the earth to sift and explore wild savage regions; some plunging into the boiling and noisy whirlpool of metropolitan activity; none who remained constant to the beautiful studies of his pupilhood was ever forgotten by the kind and wise philosopher, whose quick and cheering perception of early merit had perpetuated tastes that might have speedily perished if unobserved and unencouraged. The value of professorial worth should chiefly be estimated by the number and excellence of disciples. A large share of the best naturalists of the day received their first instruction in the science that was afterwards to prove their fountain of honour from Professor Jameson. Not even his own famous master, the eloquent and illustrious Werner, could equal him in this genesis of inves tigators. Under his auspices, too, were lasting friendships and unions of kindred minds formed that have been productive in good to the cause of knowledge. Valuable as were his writings-each when estimated with regard to the position of science at the time of its issue, an effective advance-his pupils were even more valuable. The greatest praise of a great professor is that which proclaims he has founded a school. And where else in the British empire, except here, has there been for the last half century a school of Natural History? ?" The course which he thus commenced was attended to its conclusion by a class of students and amateurs so numerous that it could scarcely be accommodated on the benches, one hundred and fifty professional students alone having enrolled their names. What a contrast did this present to the hard worked for pittance afforded to him as a man of science by Government. How he revelled in the idea of the easy income and the time at his own disposal which the possession of the Edinburgh chair would give him-and how apparent it was, that although grateful for the encouragement and advantages afforded to him by official appointments in London, his genius and scientific spirit had long pined to throw off the trammels which had been imposed upon them. These and similar feelings he has recorded in the following mockheroic stanzas : A DOLEFUL BALLAD ABOUT THE RED TAPE WORM. Written by a Government Clerk, who at an advanced age had awakened to a knowledge of the fallacy of the Superannuation Fund. "Oh the Red Tape Worm is munching my soul ! All chew'd up by the Red Tape Worm! The Red Tape Worm, though wondrously wise, I know a Treasury clerk or two, In Downing Street the Tape Worms thrive; A very young Tape Worm we may meet The Red Tape Worm is especially fat * When I'm dead and yield my ghost, But keep vile Tape Worms far away. And if I deserve to rise To a good place in paradise, May my soul kind angels guide, And keep it from the official side! [The Government Clerk revels for a moment in this dream of celestial bliss, but suddenly awakes to the maddening reality, and sings,—] Oh the Red Tape Worm is munching my soul! All chew'd up by the Red Tape Worm!" It would be easy for us to introduce a vast number of humorous songs by Forbes, more or less related to his natural history studies, not to speak of others not connected with them. Thus, "The Sea-Serpent," "The Potato," the "Chanson Microscopique," and "Chloroform and the Dead Pig," "John Chinaman," "Father Matthew," are all excellent. We cannot, however, forbear from introducing “The Oyster," not only on account of its merits, but because it is the last we heard him sing. We sat next him at the annual dinner given by the Promoter of the Medical Faculty of the Edinburgh University last August, on the graduation day, when he introduced the following rhymes, by saying they were a report of a lecture by an Irishman on THE ANATOMY OF THE OYSTER. "Of all the conchiferous shell-fish, Arrah, Mick! call the people who sell fish, Now boys, I beseech, be attentive, All the while! It was observed by a Professor present at the dinner, that the last line reminded him of certain ineffectual efforts to inject the oyster, by the late Dr Barclay, who concluded his attempts by saying, "Well, you brute, if I can't inject you, I'll eat you," suiting the action to the word. At this same dinner also, Forbes communicated a fact illustrating how lecturers are sometimes suddenly manufactured in London. At the commencement of one of his courses on Botany, in King's College, he observed a gentleman assiduously writing notes day after day. He seized an opportunity of remarking to this individual, that he seemed to be taking a great amount of trouble. Whereupon it was frankly explained to him, that the supposed student had been recently appointed lecturer on Botany in one of the London medical schools, and knowing very little of the subject, found it convenient to deliver to his own students in the afternoon the lecture he heard Forbes give in the morning. Last autumn, after residing for a short period in London, and making final arrangements for the transmission of his private collections, books, etc., to Edinburgh, he joined the meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, where he was elected President of the Geological Section. We have been informed that nothing could exceed the tact and judgment with which, during one of the most stormy debates that ever occurred, and in which his many friends were engaged on opposite sides, he contrived not only to prevent rancour and ill-feeling, but even to introduce a genial humour, and extract harmony from discord. He commenced the winter session in Edinburgh with a fatigued and jaded look, and informed us that, on a geological trip before the Liverpool meeting, he had very imprudently continued to walk and drive four hours, after being thoroughly wet through in a heavy shower of rain. He complained of chills and feverishness, which he insisted indicated a return of his old enemy, the remittent fever he had caught in Greece, and for which he took quinine. On Sunday, November 5, we were summoned to his bedside, and found him labouring under slightly febrile symptoms, with an accelerated pulse. Notwithstanding our urgent remonstrances to the contrary, he insisted on going to the College next day as usual, and such was his anxiety regarding the formation of his class, that he continued to lecture up to the Thursday following. Then hoping a few days' rest would restore him, he announced his intention of suspending his lectures until the following Monday. The febrile symptoms however continued to increase, and on Sunday he complained of obscure pain in his back. Notwithstanding the application of leeches, and the use of aperients and diaphoretics, the lumbar pain continued. On Monday the urine became tinged with blood and loaded with pus, when the real character of the disease could no longer be doubted. On Tuesday when rising, he experienced sudden and acute agony over the lower and left lateral half of the abdomen, the pulse became rapid and weak, and the skin assumed the tawny aspect indicative of pyæmia. Although there might possibly be a calculus in the kidney, these and the preceding symptoms too closely resembled those of a renal abscess bursting into the peritoneum to leave us long in doubt as to the grave nature of the case. Mr Goodsir and the writer, who were in constant attendance on our dear friend, now sought the further advice in consultation of Dr Christison. We need not say how anxiously every point was considered, nor how despondingly we were obliged to confess that little hope existed of his recovery. On Thursday the progress of the disease destroyed even the little hope that remained to us. He was informed of his approaching end, and received the intelligence with calmness, made provision for his wife and family NEW SERIES.-NO. I. JANUARY 1855. M left his scientific papers to R. Godwin Austen, Esq., secretary of the Geological Society, and all his collections of natural history to the University which he honoured as a student, and adorned as a professor. He died on Saturday, November 18, at the early age of 39 years. We were then informed that he had frequently expressed a desire that after his death the body should be examined, for the benefit of science; a circumstance we are proud to record of him, as indicative of the ardent love of knowledge by which he was ever distinguished. His wishes were fulfilled and the morbid changes which had occurred ascertained to be, 1st, Chronic pyelitis of the left kidney, evidently of some years' standing, with great distension of the pelvis; 2d, A circumscribed abscess the size of a walnut in the lower third of the organ, apparently of some weeks' standing, as it was lined throughout with a thick pyogenic membrane; 3d, A recent purulent infiltration, to the extent of a hazel nut, in the upper part of the kidney, which, together with the more chronic abscess formerly mentioned, communicated with the capsule, and through it with the parts external to the organ; 4th, Perinephritis, the capsule of the kidney being thickened and glued by recent adhesions to the cellular tissue behind and peritoneum in front; 5th, Extensive cellulitis and infiltration of pus behind the left kidney, extending down to the pelvis, and passing under the psoæ muscles and along the spermatic cord to the scrotum; 6th, Peritonitis anteriorly and laterally, glueing several coils of intestines together by recent layers of lymph. All the other organs, and especially the prostate, were perfectly healthy. To describe the sensation which the death of Professor E. Forbes occasioned is scarcely possible. That he who had of late filled so large a space in the eye of the scientific world-one of the council of the Royal Society, President of the Royal Geological Society, and of the Geological Section of the British Association, member of the Linnæan, Zoological, Geographical, and other Societiesthat he who, at the age of 39, had succeeded to the chair of Jameson in the Edinburgh University, and for whom a long career fruitful in new discoveries, honours and emoluments seemed so certain, should be thus suddenly cut off, was not only most unexpected, but appeared to be a misfortune too great to be readily realised. But so it was; and although the great systematic works he projected will never appear, still so powerful has been the influence of his genius, that wherever natural history is cultivated-wherever the union of botany, geology, and zoology can be appreciated-wherever science, literature, and art are acknowledged to be capable of elevating the mind and purifying the heart, his loss will be mourned as that of one of their most earnest and truthful dis ciples. His remains were accompanied to the Dean Cemetery by the members of the University Senate in their robes, with the venerable Principal at their head; by the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of the city; by a large number of students, and a great concourse of his friends and brother naturalists, who assembled from all quarters to pay this tribute of respect to his memory. The following extract from the Literary Gazette seems to us so truthful an analysis of his character, that we cannot do better than simply transcribe it. "Edward Forbes had a great intellect. He was an acute and subtle thinker, and the broad philosophical tone and comprehensive grasp of his many-sided mind enabled him to appreciate and to understand the labours of others in fields of inquiry far different from his own. A naturalist by inclination and by profession; a close observer in the museum and in the field; possessed of a vast acquaintance with the details of those branches of science which he had made his especial study; no less capable of the widest generalizations, as his Egean researches more especially show; in speculation a Platonist, delighting in Henry More; in literature and in art blessed with a solidity of judgment and a refinement of taste such as fall to the lot of few; in social life a humorist of the order of Yorick: gifts like these are alone sufficient to raise a man to eminence, and to lead us to lament, as a great calamity, his sudden and early |