XX LIFE OF ALBANY HANCOCK. 



These were the chief men who, with and after Bewick and 

 his predecessors, gained for Newcastle its reputation for the 

 successful prosecution of the study of Natural History. 



Albany was one of the principal promoters of the Newcastle 

 Polytechnic Exhibitions of 1840 and 1848, which gave a 

 strong impetus to the diffusion of general information and 

 a love of science among the public of the town and district ; 

 and for the acknowledged beauty of arrangement of these 

 displays of art and science much was due to his taste and 

 exertions. 



From 1842 to 1864, in association with his friend Joshua 

 Alder, he was engaged in the study of Conchology, and in 

 the discovery of various new genera and species of Nudi- 

 branchiate Mollusca of the Northumberland Coast and other 

 parts of the British Islands, and in the delineation and 

 description of their external characters. Up to 1844 they had 

 discovered and described two new genera and thirty-one new 

 species (Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1844 [p. 24]), though in the 

 time of Linnasus only six species were known. In these and 

 similar pursuits his powers of minute and accurate observa- 

 tion and correct description appear to have been successfully 

 cultivated, and his talent for delineation by the pencil and 

 brush fully exercised. 



In 1843 Alder and Hancock published, in the ' Annals of 

 Natural History/ " Observations on the Development of the 

 Nudibranchiate Mollusks, with Eemarks on their Structure." 



About the time of the publication of this paper a change 

 occurred in the direction of Albany's thoughts and studies, 

 which influenced the whole of his future scientific career, 

 and, by determining for him a fixed line of investigation, 

 conduced to make him so distinguished an anatomist in 

 Malacology that his views were afterwards justly regarded 

 as of the highest authority in this department of science, 

 and the most difficult points were at times submitted for 

 his decision. The cause of this change it may not be un- 

 interesting to Naturalists to relate. He had become con- 

 vinced that valuable for classification as are the -external 

 characters and the habits of animals when carefully 

 observed, it is absolutely necessary to investigate and 

 understand their internal structure also, in order to form a 

 correct idea of their physiology and of their proper arrange- 

 ment according to their natural affinities. 



In 1843 appeared an elaborate paper by M. de Quatre- 

 fages, afterwards a celebrated French Naturalist, in the 

 ' Annales des Sciences Naturelles,' Vol. XIX, entitled 

 " Memoire sur 1'Eolidine paradoxale." In order to estimate 



