12 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



ledge and the general conclusions deducible from them, came 

 out with a degree of clearness always beautiful, and often even 

 startling. 



Another quality of his mind was the fresh and vivid interest, 

 almost childlike, which every new truth awakened in him. This 

 feeling is more or less that of every true naturalist. It depends 

 on the clear perception of what is presented to us, and on the 

 keen realization of its relations to things previously known, and 

 perhaps still more on the sudden breaking of those new relations 

 upon the mind as if with a flash of divine light. I well remem- 

 ber how, after we had disinterred the bones of Dendrerpeton 

 from the interior of a large fossil tree on the Joggins shore, his 

 thoughts ran rapidly over all the strange circumstances of the 

 burial of the animal, its geological age, and its possible relations 

 to reptiles and other animals, and he enlarged enthusiastically 

 on these points, till suddenly observing the astonishment of a 

 man who accompanied us, he abruptly turned to me and 

 whispered : " The man will think us mad if T run on in this 

 way." 



An allied feature of his mental character was the readiness 

 with which he accepted new conclusions and relinquished without 

 regret views which he might have long held, when he perceived 

 them to be shaken or untenable. He seemed wholly free from 

 that common failing of men of science which causes them to 

 cling with such tenacity to opinions once formed, even in the 

 face of the strongest evidence. This quality eminently fitted 

 him to be the expositor of a rapidly advancing science, and also 

 to be the patron and helper of younger and less eminent men, 

 and was connected with that warm and earnest interest which 

 he ever felt in the progress of knowledge, and with the deference 

 with which he received new facts and suggestions from any 

 quarter. 



These qualities, apparent in his connections with American 

 Geology, were equally valuable in his relations to science in its 

 general aspect. A man so gifted, fortunate in his genius, his 

 education, his outward circumstances, and in his appearance on 

 the stage at a time when Geology had gathered in some of its 

 greatest harvests of facts, and was waiting for a master mind to 

 arrange them, had a great opportunity, which Lyell had the 

 energy and ability to seize. He was thus able to become the guid- 

 ing mind among his contemporaries in geological theory, and to 



