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cottage home, holding a spoon at the kettle mouth, making his first 

 experiment on the condensation of steam. We marvel at the speed of 

 the electric message, and our thoughts journey back through a crowd of 

 earnest workers to Galvani making experiments on the frog's limbs. We 

 are lost in wonder at the calculations of modern astronomy, and then 

 stand before the early and self-made telescopes of a Newton and Galileo 

 with child-like surprise. We allow our minds to wander through the vast 

 field of the modern science of geology, and then think of old William 

 Smith, or Strata Smith, as he was called, the land surveyor, making his 

 observations on the lie and position of the rocks while digging his canals 

 and making his bridges. Thus, again, do I, having investigated the geology 

 of this immediate district as none before me has ever had the happy 

 opportunity of doing, look back with pleasure to the pioneering 

 work of Jonathan Otley, the quiet, nature-loving, simple-minded, modest 

 old guide. 



One object, then, of a biography, is to make us familiar with the 

 facts as to how the work was done, that by the proper exercise of our 

 judgment we may be the better enabled to do our own work, walking 

 both in present and in past light. A second object is, by linking our 

 own work to the past, to prevent our thinking more highly of ourselves 

 than we ought to think. I can fancy many a distinguished astronomer 

 standing before Newton's early telescope in the Loan Exhibition of 

 Scientific Apparatus, and judging his own work to be very very small 

 in the light of Newton's work and Newton's instruments. 



A third object in biography should be to unite our minds with all 

 that is noble and great in the character of past generations, as we would 

 wish to mix with the intellectual and pure of mind at the present day. 



A fourth useful purpose which biography serves is that of encourage- 

 ment to the worker at the present time. Does the way seem steep and 

 arduous? think of those who traversed it joyfully and successfully, when 

 perhaps far worse shod than yourself, or ere life's sign-posts were so 

 numerous or clear as now. Are we discouraged because our work seems 

 unacknowledged ? think of that glorious army of literary and scientific 

 workers who toiled on vmceasingly, accepting their mission — present 



