490 THE L IFE OF JAMES 1). FOR BES. \ < 1 1 A v. 



with indications that, though busied with what had 

 become his own more special branch of the science, he 

 remained no indifferent observer* of the rocks among 

 which his journeys led him. He retained his fondness 

 for mineralogy up to the end. When I last saw him at 

 St. Andrews, he showed me a collection of veined agates 

 which he had accumulated in the course of years, and 

 with which he used often to beguile a little leisure in 

 trying to speculate upon the manner in which the con- 

 centric siliceous coatings might have been formed. 



'But it is not from the nature or the number of 

 Principal Forbes' contributions to geology that his in- 

 terest in our science is to be measured, or that we can 

 learn how much he really did for its promotion in this 

 country. As Secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh 

 an office which he held for many years as Professor 

 here, and finally as Principal at St. Andrews, he had 

 numerous opportunities, which he was ever anxious to 

 use, of encouraging, by a kind word or deed, those who 

 were devoting themselves to geological pursuits. He had 

 watched, with a sadness which he used often to exp 

 to his friends, how the halo which shone round Scottish 

 geology in his youth had slowly faded. The last time 

 that he addressed the Royal Society of Edinburgh, this 

 feeling found vent in these expressive words: "Of all 

 the changes which have befallen Scottish science during 

 the last half century, that which I most deeply dcpioiv, 

 and, at the same time, wonder at, is the pro 

 decay of our once illustrious Geological School/' T I 

 may add that among the last letters which he wrote 

 before leaving this country for Cannes was one to myself, 

 in which he referred anew to the desirability of reviving 

 the active prosecution of geology in Scotland/ 



My own,- almost schoolboy, recollections of Forbes as 



a lecturer are still quite vivid. His clear, cold, un- 



impassioned style suited admirably the eternal verity of 



the laws he enunciated, explained, and illustrated by 



1 Proc. Rot/, Xoc. Edin., vol. v. p. 18. 



