68 REMINISCENCES OF 



enriched their museum with the superb specimen of 

 the Megalicthys Hibbertii, still one of the gems of 

 their collection. Our endeavours to discover similar 

 objects in the coalfields of Lancashire were soon 

 rewarded. In Volume IX. of the Philosophical 

 Magazine of London and Edinburgh, the results of 

 our labours are recorded in my paper already re- 

 ferred to. This paper was followed by an elaborate 

 communication to the British Association at their 

 Liverpool meeting, 1837, on the Coalfields of 

 Western Lancashire, illustrated by a large vertical 

 section of the strata between the uppermost of the 

 Ardwick limestones and the millstone grit. That 

 section is now preserved in the library of the 

 Geological Society of Manchester. 



Before closing these records of my earlier years 

 in Manchester, if the picture is to be true, a few 

 words must be added of my more private life. My 

 parents had no special religious views, and when I 

 came to Manchester I shared their indifference on 

 these subjects. For some months after my arrival 

 I was fearfully lonely. Coming as I did from a 

 happy and sympathetic home, and flung suddenly 

 into the midst of a vast population, in which I had 

 neither friend nor acquaintance, I yearned for some 

 society, but none offered itself to me. Dr. Phillips, 

 who brought me to the town, had one of those stern 

 natures to whom the emotional and sympathetic 

 sides of boyhood were unknown. Though meeting 

 him almost daily at the museum, it did not appear 



