October 28, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



385 



Anninff, with this brief appendix—" Also of his Bieter Mary ' to a supply of gypsum (sulphate of lime), without which no 



Annino, who died March the 9th, 1847, aged 17 years." No 

 memorial could be less attractive, and it seems very incon- 

 gruous when you look inside the church at the noble window, 

 placed there, to do her honour, by the vicar and a few members 

 of the Geological Society. Yet it is not incongruous ; for the 

 headstone is the modest record by the relatives, and the window 

 is the record of the estimation in which she was held by the 

 public. The window includes medallion pictures of every form 

 of benevolence — visiting and relieving the sick, the poor, the 

 bereaved, and the imprisoned. 



Mary Anning was a thoroughly Christian woman. Like 

 another Mary — Mary Somerville, she neglected none of the 

 duties of private life ; and the science she loved, each fossil 

 she found, served only as " records of God before the deluge." 

 She was the daughter of a carpenter, left an orphan when only 

 eleven years old, and as a mode of breadwinning she walked 

 to the seashore to seek for some of the strange forms she had 

 seen others seeking for. She found one, and returning towards 

 home with it in her hand a lady saw it, and gave her for it 

 half a crown. That decided 

 her to pursue the researches 

 which brought to her inde- 

 pendence and fame — a fame 

 BO wide-spread as to justify 

 her telling the King of 

 Saxony, " I am well known 

 throughout the whole of 

 Europe." 



A few months after her 

 first "find" she saw in the 

 lias strata the bones of some 

 animal projecting. Men 

 hired by her dug it out. She 

 sold the skeleton for £23, 

 and it is now that Ichthyo- 

 saurus so well known in the 

 geological gallery of the 

 British Museum. 



She corresponded with 

 Home, Buckland, Conybeare, 

 Do la Beche, and Cuvier ; 

 and the shop she established 

 for the sale of fossils was 

 the repository whence they 

 and other students derived 

 illustrative specimens. It 

 was not until 1820 that 

 Cuvier completed the de- 

 tection of the structure of 

 the Ichthyosaurus, so that 

 ton years had elapsed during 

 the research for its members 

 — the same number of years 

 as were occupied in the siege 



of Troy; and one of her adniiiiira observed, "Miss Anning 

 figured throughout — was, in fact, a Helen to the geologists." 



Admiring Miss Anning's character both as a woman and as 

 an indomitable geologist I inquired for her portrait, and was 

 astounded by the reply that hero none existed. This seemed 

 so incredible that I sought out her nearest surviving relatives. 

 One of these proved to be Mrs. Jerrard, the wife of a butcher ; 

 and on being admitted to her parlour I rejoiced no little to see 

 a smaU oil painting of Miss Anning hanging against the wall. 

 There was no mistaking it ; the simple straw cottage bonnet, 

 the sober-coloured dress, the large geologists' hammer in her 

 hand, the basket for specimens on her arm, the kindly yet self- 

 reliant expression, all coincided with the remembrance rendered 

 faint by a lapse of about forty years. I obtained permission 

 to have it photographed, and perhaps copies may be obtained 

 from the photographer, Mr. Walter, at Lyme Regis. From 

 that photograph the wood engraving accompanying these notes 

 was taken. 



Some one may growl forth the query. What has geology to 

 do with topics appropriate for these columns ? I reply. Much. 

 Geology discovered the coprolites particularised in the first of 

 my notes: it is, in other words, the natural history of our 

 globe. Everything growing upon it is connected with geology. 

 Every stratum has particiilar constituents ; and a knowledge 

 of this and of the nature of those constituents enabled M. Ber- 

 thollet to double the produce from a poor soil by bringing to 

 the surface some of the uuder strata. The geologist who led 



Clover "will flourish, and ho who warned cultivators against 

 the employment of a hmestono because it contained magnesia, 

 are only a few instances justifying the American professor's 

 thesis—" Geology has strong claims to regard on the ground 

 of positive utility." All soils are formed from the rocks and 

 strata of our globe ; and as the strata are all arranged in a 

 certain order, and as those associated often differ materially 

 in their composition, the strata immediately beneath a culti- 

 vated soil may, and often does, contain constituents capable 

 of improving it ; and a knowledge of the strata is also one of 

 the best guides in effecting drainage economically. 



I once heard some quotation from Shakespeare to show that 

 he had a knowledge of geology ; but still more recently have 

 I known a controversy and many quotations to show that the 

 poet must have been of the military profession. I expressed a 

 beUef that he had a store of general knowledge which enabled 

 him to write correctly on any professional topic. The reply 

 to me was, " Perhaps you can show reasons to believe he was 

 a gardener ■"' That quotations from his plays can be gathered 



quite as strong to sustain 

 such an opinion as there 

 can to sustain the belief 

 that he was a soldier, the 

 following may suffice. 



He names in most of his 

 plays many flowers fami- 

 liarly and their arrangement 

 in " the curious knotted 

 garden" — {Lovt'^s Labour 

 Lost, A. i., s. 1). Of fruits 

 he knew the popular names 

 — " I'm withered like an old 

 Apple-John," a variety now 

 known as the Winter Green- 

 ing— (1 Hen. IV., A. iii., B. 

 8). His knowledge of fruit- 

 culture was sound, for he 

 warns against injudicious 

 grafting — " Our scions put 

 in wild and savage stock, 

 sprout up so suddenly into 

 the clouds and overgrow the 

 grafters." — {Hen. I'., A. iii., 

 s. 5). Further knowledge 

 of fruit culture is evinced in 

 these other passages — 



" You see we man-y 

 A gentle scion to the wildest stock ; 

 Anil make conceive a bark of baser 



kind 

 i:.v bud of nobler race. Tliis is au 



art 

 Which does ictnd nature, change 



it rather ; but 

 The ait itself is nature." 



—{Winlcr's Tale,A.ii.). 



" We at time of year 

 Do wound the bark, the akin of our fruit trees. 

 Lest, being overproud with sap and blood, 

 With too much riches, it confound itself." 



—{Eiitri lUchanl II., A. iii.). 

 " All superfluous branches 

 We lop away that bearing boughs may live." 



—(King Richard II., A. iiL). 



" Go, bind thou up yon dangling Apricocks 

 Which, like unruly children, make their sire 

 Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight ; 

 Give some supportance to the bending twigs." 



—{King Bichard II., A. ill.). 

 — G. 



S3.— Maky ANKisa. 



AGAVE AMERICANA SEED-VESSELS AMONG 

 THE OFFSETS. 



DEAC.ENA INDIVISA SEEDS RIPENING. 



An American Aloe has this autumn flowered at St. Michael's 

 Mount. Among the ordinary suckers thrown-up at such times 

 are many hke the enclosed, which seem to be a regular seed- 

 vessel and flower. [It was a perfect seed-vessel. — Eds] This 

 seems strange, as if the tendency to flower should be extended 

 from its normal position down to the very roots. Before this 

 expansion these sports have the appearance of an unfolded 

 Crocus. 



Dracfena indivisa ripened its seeds out of doors here last 

 year on a plant about 13 feet in height, and J have hundreds 

 of young plants from this seed. It haa been a wonderful year 



