919 



POEBES, EDWARD. 



FORBES, JAMES. 



960 



' Translation of the Syatema Naturae of Linnaeus.' AVhilst yet a boy 

 of twelve years old he had read Buckland's ' Reliquiae Diluvianfe,' 

 Parkinson's 'Organic Remains,' and Cony beare's ' Geology of England.' 

 Such was the impression produced on his mind by the perusal of these 

 works, that lie ever afterwards attributed his taste for geological 

 research to reading them. His 6rst attempt at original work was 

 the production of a 'Manual of British Natural History,' which, 

 although it was never published, was the repository of many of his 

 notes even to the close of his life. His habit of drawing the natural 

 history objects which interested him, led him to think of painting as 

 a profession, and with this object in view he studied for some time in 

 the studio of the late Mr. Sass in Charlotte-street, London. This 

 ftotoaaan did not however comply with his restless desire to study 

 the facts of natural history, and in 1832 he repaired to the University 

 of Edinburgh with the object of studying medicine. Here under 

 the teaching of Professors Jameson and Graham he first became 

 acquainted with the true principles of natural science, and the views 

 and objects of its cultivation. This fired his ambition to become 

 himself an observer and add to the already accumulated stores of 

 natural Listory fact'. It was with this feeling that he started with 

 a fellow-student on an excursion into Norway, where he made 

 numerous observations on the rocks, plants, and Mollmca of the 

 country, and afterwards published the result of his observations in a 

 paper i the 'Magazine of Natural History," entitled 'Notes of a 

 Natural History Tour in Norway.' 



At this early period of his natural history career he had recognised 

 the importance of the dredge as an instrument of his research, and 

 in his hands this jimple instrument became as powerful a means of 

 research as the telescope to the astronomer. With it he swept the 

 bottom of the ocean, measured its depths by the character of its 

 inhabitants, and discovered a law for tbe distribution of marine 

 plants and nnimals in depth, as strict as the law which regulated 

 their distribution on the altitudu of mountains. His early papers, 

 entitled ' Records of the Results of Dredging,' were published in 

 the eighth and ninth volumes of the 'Magazine of Natural History.' 

 Much of his student time was spent upon the sea in the neighbour- 

 hood of Edinburgh, and scarcely ever did he make a dredging 

 excursion, BO new was the operation to the naturalist, without adding 

 Rome new form or species to his increasing collection of natural 

 objects. His attention was not at all however exclusively confined 

 to marine zoology. Plants were always favourite objects, and no 

 student enjoyed more or profited more largely by the botanical 

 excursions of the late Professor Graham. This habit of excursionising 

 he held constituted a most important element in botanical study, at 

 once invigorating the body, and giving the student a knowledge of 

 the relation of plants to other objects which they could not other- 

 wise obtain. \\ hilet he held the chair of botany at King's College, 

 London, he never neglected periodical excursions with his students. 

 He waa mninly instrumental in 1836 in establishing the Botanical 

 Society of Edinburgh, of which he became the foreign secretary. In 

 1837 he visited Paris, attended the lectures of the professors there, 

 and worked in the museum and collections in the Jardin des Plantes. 

 In the same year he visited Algiers and the coasts of the Mediterranean. 

 In 1 833 he published an account of the ' Mollusca of the Isle of Man,' 

 and in 1839 papers on the 'Land and Freshwater Mollusca of Algiers,' 

 and on the 'Distribution of the Pulmonifera of Europe." In these 

 researches he was laying the foundation for the enlarged views, which 

 he afterwards put forth, with regard to the distribution of the genera 

 and species of animals and plants in time and space. 



His papers from this time became very numerous. The materials 

 he accumulated in his various excursions were truly astonishing, 

 and he lived to publish but a comparatively small proportion of them. 



In 1841 he published a 'History of British Star-Fisl.es,' containing 

 accounts of several new species, with charming descriptions of the 

 habit.-< of these animals, and incidents connected with catching them, 

 whilst the tail-pieces from his own pencil were worthy a disciple 

 of Bewick. In this year he accepted the appointment of naturalist to 

 11. M. S. Beacon, commander Captain Graves, who was commissioned 

 to bring the marbles from Lycia, discovered by Sir Charles Fellows. 

 Here new fields were opened up to him. For the first time the 

 resources of a ship of war were placed at the disposal of a naturalist. 

 The result of tins voyage was the discovery of the great law, that 

 nmonif marine animals zones of depth corresponded to parallels of 

 latitude. This law was announced at the meeting of the British 

 Association held at Cork in 1843. The detailed results of this voyage 

 were never given to the world, and Forbes always looked forward to 

 tbe day when a little leisure would permit him to publish in detail 

 hia researches. But he had to work for his daily bread, and, to the 

 disgrace of his country, no position wan provided for him in which 

 tbe necessary leisure could be found, till it was too late. 



Other results came out of his Lyciau excursions. In conjunction 

 with Lieutenant, now Captain, Spratt, he published his travels in 

 Lycin, with numerous illustrations mode from his own drawings, and 

 notes on the natural history of the ./Egean. 



It was in Lycia that he contracted the same form of remittent fever 

 which killed one of his companions, the Rev. Mr. Dauiell, and from the 

 effects of which he suffered to the day of his death. 



Whilst away in the /Kgean, he was appointed to the Professorship 



of Botany in King's College, London, vacated by the death of Mr. 

 David Don. Although he had resolved on a visit to Egypt and a 

 dredging excursion to the Red Sea, the offer of a chair in London was 

 too much in accordance with his tastes to refuse. He now deliberately 

 gave up the medical profession, and became a naturalist for the rest of 

 his life. He gave his first lecture in May 1844, and in the same year 

 he was appointed assistant secretary to the Zoological Society. Both 

 situations contributed to the development of his genius, for whilst the 

 professorship compelled him to arrange and systematise his knowledge, 

 and developed his power of communicating its results, the secretaryship 

 afforded him a means of extending his acquaintance with fossils, and 

 the relations of extinct with recent forms of both animals and plants. 

 These offices however preceded one more important still, that of 

 palaiontologist to the Geological Society of Great Britain. When the 

 Museum of Economic Geology was removed to Jermyn-street, and the 

 School of Mines founded, he was appointed professor of natural 

 history. Although prevented by these appointments from publishing 

 all he had already stored up, he added here fresh stores to his stock 

 of knowledge, and numerous, memoirs and papers in the Natural 

 History Journals, the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, and the 

 Transactions of the Geological Society, attest his great observing powers 

 and unwearied industry. Oue of the most important of these papers 

 is entitled ' On the connection between the distribution of the existing 

 Fauna and Flora of the British Isles, and the geological changes which 

 have affected their area.' This paper attempts to explain the dis- 

 tribution of the plants and animals of the British Islands, 011 the 

 hypothesis that they were all diffused from a common centre, and 

 that consequently they must have been disseminated when these 

 islands were continuous with those countries where the identical 

 species are found. He then brings forward geological evidence to 

 support his assertions!, and even goes so far as to point out the fact, 

 that at one time and that recentlyydry ground existed between the 

 south-western portions of the British Islands and America. 



In 1854 Professor Forbes was elected president of the Geological 

 Society. In the same year he accepted the chair of Natural History 

 in the University of Edinburgh. He was president of the geological 

 section of the British Association which met at Liverpool iu September. 

 He died on the 18th of November iu the same year. The Edinburgh 

 chair was the object of his highest ambition. The increasing years of 

 Professor Jameson rendered it not improbable even when he was a 

 student that he might one day hope to fill this honourable post. Ho 

 commenced the duties of his new position with his usual ardour, laid 

 down a course of action which would have required years of develop- 

 ment, but he had barely time to deliver a preliminary summer course 

 before he was seized with a disease of the kidneys which proved fatal 

 in a few days. 



Besides the works to which reference is made above, he was the 

 associate of Mr. Hanley in a great work on the ' History of British 

 Mollusca/ which was published ia parts, aud completed in 1853. This 

 work is one of the most complete and exhaustive on the subject of 

 our native Molluscn, and all the descriptions were written by Forbes. 

 He contributed several valuable papers and maps on the distribution 

 of animals and plants to the last edition of Johnston's ' Physical Atlas." 

 He also indulged iu general literature, and the world was somewhat 

 surprised after his decease to find that for some years ho had beeu 

 a contributor to the review department of the ' Literary Gazette.' His 

 papers were collected together by the editor, and published under tbe 

 title of 'Literary Papers by the late Edward Forbes.' The third volume 

 of the 'Bibliographia Geologia et Zoologia" of Agassiz and Strickland, 

 published by the Ray Society in 1850, contains a list of eighty-nine 

 papers and works supplied by the author himself, and arrauged in 

 chronological order. His contributions to natural history science were 

 perhaps more numerous during the last four years of his life than 

 during any former period of the same length. Few men have laboured 

 more assiduously in the path of natural science, or produced a greater 

 impression on the current thought of those who cultivated the same 

 branches of knowledge, as himself; and the time has not yet arrived 

 when a clear estimate can be made of the influence he has exerted 

 upon the time in which he lived. 



FORBES, JAMES, was born in London in 1749. Ho went out in 

 1765 with a writer's appointment, in the service of the East India 

 Company, to Bombay ; accompanied in a civil capacity the troops sent 

 to asr-ist Ragonath Row, peshwa of the Mahrattas, in 1775 ; and, after 

 a short visit to England for his health, received an appointment at 

 Baroche, iu Guzerat, from which he was promoted iu 1780 to be 

 collector and chief resident of the town and district of Dhuboy in the 

 same province, then newly occupied by the company. On tbe cession 

 of that province t the Mahrattas in 1783, he returned to England, 

 honoured by the affection and sincere regret of the natives who had 

 been placed under his charge. Being in France iu 1803, ho was 

 among the numerous ' detenus' confined at Verdun, but was released 

 with his family in 1804 as a man of science by the mediation of the 

 French Institute, at the instance of our Royal Society. In 1806 Mr. 

 Forbes published two volumes of letters, descriptive of his tour iu 

 Holland, Belgium, and France, with a more particular account of 

 Verdun, and the treatment of the British detained there. In 1813 ho 

 published the work by which he is now best known, ' Oriental Memoirs, 

 selected and abridged from a scries of Familiar Letters, written during 



