SKETCH OF DR. JEFFRIES WYMAN. 357 



tion was signalized by his account of the gorilla, based upon speci- 

 mens forwarded to him by Dr. Savage. This was the first scientific 

 description of the new Troglodytes. 



From that time forward his scientific progress was rapid and un- 

 broken. He collected, he investigated, he lectured, he wrote. His 

 admirable course of lectures upon Comparative Physiology, before 

 the Lowell Institute, in 1849 (the report of which in pamphlet form 

 has long been out of print), soon caused him to be regarded as the 

 foremost among American anatomists and physiologists. 



During this period, and indeed until within a few years of his death, 

 Prof. Wyman published frequent brief notices of new animals, of points 

 of structure and function, the value of which is in no way to be meas- 

 ured by their length. Almost any one of them would have served a 

 less modest man for an extended memoir, while several contain the ele- 

 ments of interesting popular articles. So far from this, Prof. Wyman 

 seemed to attach little personal importance to them, rarely referred to 

 them, or took any pains to have them reproduced elsewhere. Many 

 were, however, copied into European journals. 



His first extended paper was " On the Nervous System of JRcma 

 pijriens " (the bull-frog). It covers fifty quarto pages, with two 

 plates, was published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1853, and 

 should be in the hands of every student of either human or compara- 

 tive anatomy, as the clearest introduction to the most complex of ani- 

 mal structures. 



Somewhat similar to the last, not quite so long, but even more re- 

 plete with fact and philosophy, is the " Observations on the Develop- 

 ment of Rata batis " (a skate), published by the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences in 1864. This was based upon few materials, but 

 sufficed to convince him, and all naturalists, that the skate ranks 

 higher than the shark, since the latter retains through life a general 

 form resembling one of the stages through which the former passes 

 during its development. 



Those who knew Wyman's nature may well imagine how he shrank 

 from any thing like a discussion of two great questions upon which so 

 much has been written during the past fifteen years, namely, the 

 " Origin of Species " and " Spontaneous Generation." But, aside from 

 his natural desire to know and teach the most correct doctrine upon 

 these subjects, his prominent position made it imperative that he 

 should consider them carefully. Respecting evolution, he evidently 

 felt, with Prof. Gray, that, " upon very many questions, a truly wise 

 man remains long in a state of neither belief nor unbelief; but your 

 intellectually short-sighted people are apt to be preternaturally clear- 

 sighted, and to find their way very quickly to one or the other side 

 of every mooted question." In 1863 he wrote as follows : " We must 

 either assume, on the one hand, that living organisms commenced 

 their existence fully formed, and by processes not in accordance with 



