406 HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



ordinary ability and the patronage which his brother could command 

 soon obtained for Hunter a surgical appointment at one of the great 

 London hospitals, and he acquired a large private practice as a surgeon. 

 But nearly every shilling that Hunter could save from what he gained 

 by his profession was expended in collecting specimens and subjects 

 for the study of comparative anatomy. Even while his income was as 

 yet comparatively small, he bought a piece of ground in a suburban 

 village, built on it a house in which to deposit his collections, and laid 

 out the ground as a zoological garden, in which he could study the 

 habits of living animals. In spite of his numerous engagements 

 extensive private practice, lectures at medical school, dissections for 

 students at his own house, duties of surgeon to St. George's Hospital, 

 and of Surgeon-General to the army Hunter found time to work in his 

 museum, where he used to spend the mornings from sunrise to eight 

 o'clock. He found, too, time for the composition of some important 

 works, and took an active part in the meetings of the Royal Society. 

 In order to obtain subjects for examination, he applied to the pro- 

 prietors of all the menageries in London for the bodies of such of their 

 animals as died, and in consideration of this he would give them other 

 rare animals to exhibit, on condition of receiving the bodies of these 

 animals when they died. 



Hunter died in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and after his death 

 his museum was purchased by the Government for ;i 5,000, and was 

 deposited in the premises in Lincoln's Inn Fields belonging to the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. This magnificent collection, which is said 

 to have cost Hunter in money five times the above-named sum, is one 

 of the most splendid monuments of what the skill, labour, and in- 

 dustry of an individual can effect. 



Although Geology took rank as a science only in the eighteenth 

 century, it will not be supposed by the reader that observation and 

 speculation regarding matters which belong to this science were alto- 

 gether wanting in preceding ages. We have already seen (p. 17) that 

 some of the teachings of the Pythagoreans gave evidence of certain 

 striking geological facts having been observed in ancient times. With 

 the exception of Palissy's doctrine regarding fossil shells, we have not 

 thought it necessary to record the opinions of the earlier writers who, 

 indeed, occupied themselves merely with vague and fanciful specula- 

 tions and arguments concerning fossils, Noah's Flood, earthquakes, 

 and so on. Every theory, how foolish soever it might be in a scientific 

 sense, which agreed with the received ideas on these subjects, attracted 

 some supporters. Fossils, as already mentioned, were called " freaks 

 of nature," and some writers were ready to explain the way in which 

 nature proceeded in the productions e.g., "by setting fatty matter 

 into fermentation," or pouring in the " lapidifying juice," and giving 

 shape to her materials by " tumultous movements of terrestrial exhala- 

 tions." When ancient learning and science were revived, the country 



