GEOLOGY. 



47 



me to associate with them. Certainly I was not aware of 

 any such superiority, and I remember one of my sporting 

 friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my beetles, saying 

 that I should some day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and 

 the notion seemed to me preposterous. 



During my last year at Cambridge, I read with care and ' 

 profound interest Humboldt's ' Personal Narrative.' This \ 

 work, and Sir J. Herschel's ' Introduction to the Study of 

 Natural Philosophy,' stirred up in me a burning zeal to add 

 even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of 

 Natural Science. No one or a dozen other books influenced 

 me nearly so much as these two. I copied out from Hum- 

 boldt long passages about Teneriffe, and read them aloud 

 on one of the above-mentioned excursions, to (I think) Hens- 

 low, Ramsay, and Dawes, for on a previous occasion I had 

 talked about the glories of Teneriffe, and some of the party 

 declared they would endeavour to go there ; but I think that 

 they were only half in earnest. I was, however, quite in ear- 

 nest, and got an introduction to a merchant in London to 

 enquire about ships ; but the scheme was, of course, knocked 

 on the head by the voyage of the Beagle. 



My summer vacations were given up to collecting beetles, 

 to some reading, and short tours. In the autumn my whole 

 time was devoted to shooting, chiefly at Woodhouse and 

 Maer, and sometimes with young Eyton of Eyton. Upon . 

 the whole the three years which I spent at Cambridge were j 

 the most joyful in my happy life ; for I was then in excellent 

 health, and almost always in high spirits. 



As I had at first come up to Cambridge at Christmas, I 

 was forced to keep two terms after passing my final exami- 

 nation, at the commencement of 1831 ; and Henslow then 

 persuaded me to begin the study of geology. Therefore on 

 my return to Shropshire I examined sections, and coloured 

 a map of parts round Shrewsbury. Professor Sedgwick in- 

 tended to visit North Wales in the beginning of August to 

 pursue his famous geological investigations amongst the 

 older rocks, and Henslow asked him to allow me to accom- 



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