The Microscope. 153 



in any department, is not the tendency great to take from him 

 the credit and to claim it; is not the temptation to smash him 

 and to attempt to rise on his ruins hard for some to resist ? My 

 observation has so taught me. But Dr Leidy never condescended 

 to such ignoble meanness. When such treatment was hurled at 

 him he only stepped aside, and began to study something else 

 and to adorn it with his master touch, and with his master mind 

 to expose all of the exquisite beauty that he found in it. He 

 seldom answered back, unless the attack was more than ordinarily 

 vicious. And then he had an enviable way of giving a quietus 

 with something more pungent than a bare bodkin, a quietus that 

 ■was final. But he never fought, nor struggled, nor had an ill 

 word to say of even his most pronounced enemy. And all the 

 enemies that he ever had were those that had failed through 

 their own carelessness and were envious of the master. To vent 

 their petty spite against their own nature they could be mean 

 enough to strike Leidy who towered above like the giant that he 

 was, and made a conspicuous figure to be struck at. His scientific 

 gospel was a gospel of work. He had no theories to preach. His 

 only object was to find the facts and to tell of them. Of course 

 he made mistakes. Was there ever a human being that did not ? 

 But he made rather fewer than the majority of workers. His 

 mind was so keen, his insight so acute that he seldom went far 

 astray, and even in those few instances the results were rather 

 the fault of the instruments than of the workman. 



He made himself a name in almost every department of nat- 

 ural science, but with all his learning he was so unassuming that 

 it was a pleasure to come in contact with him. To the little 

 fellows he could condescend in a way that was not patronizing 

 and humiliating to the inquirer, but was inspiring and delight- 

 ful. There was no evidence of condescension. For the time 

 Taeing the inquirer was his equal and his intimate companion. 

 'To have been with him for even a short time and to have touched 

 his hand are things to be remembered. But he is dead. Dr 

 Leidy is dead. May the peace that passeth all understanding 

 be with him. Nothing can be too good for Joseph Leidy. 



THE " Key to the Fresh-water Algse and the Desmids " so 

 long advertised in The Microscope can not be published, 

 ^s not enough subscribers have been obtained to pay for the 



