124 GEOLOGICAL NOTES. 



met with notes attached to the fossils, which 

 made it clear that the collector of the 

 specimens was not one who contented himself 

 with amassing material for others to examine, 

 but that he was a true student who looked 

 upon fossils as the records of past life. The 

 value of the Rufford collection is due in no 

 small degree to the care and discrimination 

 with which the specimens were selected. 



Mr. Rufford's suggestions, frequently made 

 to me in the course of my work, afforded strik- 

 ing proof of his scientific instinct and critical 

 faculty ; he possessed in large measure the 

 power of observation, and was accustomed to 

 go straight to Nature for information. In 

 looking over the material with me, during his 

 visits to the Museum, he would occasionally 

 miss a particular fragment of some stem or 

 leaf ; he seemed to remember each individual 

 specimen, and recognised the supreme import- 

 ance of keeping the most fragmentary and 

 unattractive pieces as possible clues to the 

 interpretation of larger and more perfect 

 fossils. 



It would occupy too much space were I to 

 attempt to give an account of the nature of the 

 plant records which we owe to Mr. Rufford's 



