io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



respective items of clearing -checks, bills, bank-notes, and coin, and 

 found that out of each million more than $700,000 passed through the 

 clearing-house. Such a measure of the convenience secured by the 

 system was evidence enough that its extension was desirable. Under 

 the old system of settling country accounts, a country bank taking in 

 the course of the day two hundred checks, drawn on perhaps one hun- 

 dred bankers scattered all over the kingdom, had to write one hundred 

 separate letters and dispatch them by post to as many different points. 

 Under the new system, the checks are all sent to London, grouped and 

 classified as are the city checks in the city clearing-house, and sent in 

 batches to their destinations, with a great saving of labor. 



To Sir John Lubbock is also due the introduction of a method of ex- 

 amination for clerks of bankers and joint-stock companies conducted . 

 by the City of London College, in the same manner as the examina- 

 tions instituted by the Government under the Civil Service Commis- 

 sioners. He is also Honorary Secretary to the London Association of 

 Bankers, and in that capacity, besides keeping the records of the meet- 

 ings of the association, acting as secretary of all committees, control- 

 ling the internal arrangements of the Clearing-House, etc., he has the 

 duty of representing the bankers of London on questions relating to 

 Government in Parliament, and, indeed, whenever any intermediate 

 agent between banking circles and the officers of Government is 

 needed. When the Institute of Bankers, now numbering more than 

 two thousand members, was formed, he was unanimously chosen its 

 president. He has contributed many valuable papers to financial lit- 

 erature, and was a member of the International Coinage Commission. 



The proper performance of these multifarious duties would seem 

 not to leave time for the successful pursuit of any other occupations, 

 but Sir John Lubbock has been able to give them due attention and, 

 in addition, besides doing good service to his country in Parliament, 

 to become a distinguished investigator and experimenter, and an au- 

 thority in more than one branch of science. Science was one of the 

 earliest of Sir John Lubbock's pursuits, and it was one of those that 

 he has most constantly followed up. He knew practically nothing of 

 banking till he was fourteen years old, while his name was not on the 

 rolls of Parliament till he was a man of thirty-six. But he was a nat- 

 uralist in his very childhood. His taste in this direction was carefully 

 nurtured by his father, who was accordingly very glad when Mr. Dar- 

 win settled as his near neighbor at Down. From that day forward 

 he was a pupil of that master, and became one of his most ardent dis- 

 ciples. His methods of investigation are very similar to those of Mr. 

 Darwin, and consist largely of the minute, accurate observation of 

 small things. His researches in zoology have been chiefly devoted to 

 the development, habits, and structure of the lower animals, chiefly of 

 insects and Crustacea, in which he has made numerous discoveries that 

 are recorded in various scientific journals and in the " Transactions ' : 



