XX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 



and dangerous, if the water is stagnant and full of green slimy filth, 

 then it is all the more attractive to the searcher after science ; but 

 the banks and footing on the margins of such spots are treacherous, 

 and the more ardent and devoted the Botanist may be, the more 

 reason for anxiety and fear that a false step might be disastrous. 

 Often, on returning home, Mr. Kennedy's clothes bore evidence that 

 fears of this nature regarding him were far from groundless. On 

 one of these expeditions with Professor Arnot, they were in the 

 neighbourhood of some coal-pits; a group of colliers gathered 

 round, and were considerably puzzled as to what the two men of 

 science could be doing. There were various efforts made by way of 

 explanation, and critical remarks were freely expressed. Mr. 

 Kennedy heard the following descriptive analysis of his own doings: 

 " That wee ane's daft, he's clean gyte ; see, he's gathering glaur and 

 pittin'd in a bottle." This, of course, was the uninviting-looking 

 scum which floats on stinking pools, and which might be expected, 

 when placed under the microscope, to reveal the existence of 

 diatoms. 



In reading the Life, lately published, of Thomas Edward the 

 Naturalist, it had an interest to me from finding so much in it that 

 resembled what I knew in the career of my friend. The German 

 term of " Doppelgangers " might be applied to them, for there is 

 much that is similar in their histories. There must be a resemblance 

 in the lives of all self-made men. The fight with hard circumstances 

 is often the same, and the thirst for knowledge, impelling the 

 struggle to supply that thirst, has been an oft-repeated tale. The 

 similarity of life which is evolved has been thus put by Carlyle 

 " that all men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life 

 a strange' emblem of every man's." Although this is true, in a sense, 

 of the whole human kind, yet the words tell more directly when 

 applied to men who have made their mark in life. Few people 

 realise, when they hear of success achieved by some one in the walks 

 of Science or of Art, how much may have been sacrificed in the 

 struggle how much had to be given up to gain the one point what 

 precious things had to be thrown away what solitary hours had to 

 be spent, and the ordinary pleasures of life refused ; and, at the 

 same time, to suffer the chilling influence, which is inevitable from 

 the want of sympathy among so many around, towards what is 



