200 EDINBURGH 



though no better and wholly unfit for the task. We all 

 opposed it most strongly but unavailingly. A Fly was 

 hired and Mrs. G. went too and sat in the back room. On 

 the road we passed Principal Faith going down to hear me 

 go off, and him Dr. Graham enlisted too. At the door we fell 

 foul of Arnott, and he and his brother also were impressed. 

 We all went into the class-room together, myself like a 

 candidate amongst his constituents. Graham first intro- 

 duced me, he could hardly stand but did not faint ; the 

 Principal did the same, myself looking like a fool and mutter- 

 ing angry words to myself. After which I read them a 

 screed on the influence of vegetation on creation, wholly 

 opposed to Graham's teaching and doctrines, for he holds 

 that plants and animals are in all functions precisely the 

 same, and I that they are diametrically opposite. Altogether 

 the being shown up as I was, and having Brown's far too 

 flattering testimonial of my attainments and moral character 

 read by the Principal, was hateful to me. 



The class is small apparently ; the room, holds 160, 

 but has never yet been full. I do not expect there will be 

 much over 100 altogether. All hands are very friendly to 

 me, and I suppose that I stand a good chance of being 

 booked for exactly half my life in Edinburgh, for I shall 

 never stay here more than half of each year if I can help it. 



Forbes 1 does not think of the chair ; he told me so the 

 other day voluntarily, but that he would like that of Nat. Hist. 

 Jameson's 2 who has long been in most precarious health. 



1 Edward Forbes (1815-54) was a brilliant worker in botany, geology, 

 marine zoology, and palaeontology, who travelled widely in Europe as well as 

 in Syria and Algeria, and was naturalist on board tho Beacon in 1841. After 

 holding the chair of Botany at King's College, London, from 1842, he was 

 appointed Palaeontologist to the Geological Survey in 1844, leaving this for 

 the chair of Natural History at Edinburgh in 1854. In 1853 he became Presi- 

 dent of the Geological Society at the unprecedentedly early age of thirty-eight. 

 His important paper ' 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 ' (1846) dealt with a subject in which both 

 Darwin and Hooker were then at work. Forbes was 'not only a witty writer 

 and the genial founder of the Red Lion Club, but a personality equally beloved 

 and admired. 



2 Robert Jameson (1774-1854) was appointed Regius Professor of Natural 

 History and Keeper of the University Museum at Edinburgh in 1804. His 

 main work was in mineralogy, but he also wrote on geography, ornithology, 

 and travel. With Sir David Brewster he was the joint founder in 1819 of the 

 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, and for the last twenty-five years of his life 

 sole editor. 



