MT. 25-26.] GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE. 53 



as his own with that ardent love of knowledge, and 

 that intense longing to seek after and know the truth. 

 The following fragment of a letter, without a date, 

 addressed to her when a child, shows the writer's ever- 

 present consciousness of the Hand at the helm, and 

 indicated the spirit in which he worked : 



Observe, my dear Sophia, the wonders which surround you. 

 Study and admire every object of the natural world. In all 

 that you see there is beauty and harmony, and in all that you 

 examine order and design. There is nothing so vast and so 

 complicated but what you may hope to comprehend, and nothing 

 so insignificant but what is worthy of investigation. All has 

 proceeded from the same hands, and all indicate the same 

 wisdom and admirable adaptation. Wonderful are His works, 

 and perfect and unerring are His laws. Oh, should we not 

 be thankful that we are endowed with capacities to comprehend 

 His works and to study His laws, and being thus endowed with 

 the means, ought we not to avail ourselves of so great and happy 

 a privilege, humbly to explore and strive to comprehend the 

 wonderful works of His hands, and gratefully and earnestly 

 to admire their beauty and perfection? 



Be assured, my dear little niece, that such objects of study 

 and contemplation will ever afford you the purest and most 

 unalloyed pleasure. . . . 



In Paris, on the 8th January 1838, he had the gratifi- 

 cation of being elected a member of the Societe Geolo- 

 gique de France, on which occasion he was introduced 

 by two eminent members, Constant Prevost and Achille 

 Delesse. This brought him into contact with geolo- 

 gists in France who had come to the front, and hence 

 the foundation was laid of many lasting and delightful 

 friendships. His dear friends Albert Gaudry and 

 A. Daubree became prominent members of the French 

 Geological Society, likewise the lamented Edouard 

 Lartet but we are anticipating and many other dis- 



