Samuel Gibson. 167 



common use of this name, correctly so, as it is applied 

 very generally to the entire valley, or from the village up 

 to the insulated rocks. Properly, however, it denotes only 

 a small portion near the latter. Gibson, a man wholly 

 self-taught, and who kept to his anvil till nearly the time 

 of his death, in the spring of 1849, possessed a vast 

 amount of knowledge of almost every department of 

 natural history. A considerable portion of his collection, 

 comprising a cabinet of seeds of British plants, ferns, 

 lichens, Marchantias, shells, and insects, was purchased, 

 after his decease, for the Peel Park Museum. Another 

 portion went to the museum once existing in Peter-street. 

 The herbarium of flowering-plants, valued at .75, went 

 into the hands of Mr. Mark Philips. Most men suffer 

 from some kind of constitutional malady. Poor Gibson 

 laboured under an infirmity of temper which constantly 

 brought him into collision with his fellow-students. He 

 always meant well, as proved in his last famous battle 

 over the Carex paradoxa; and probably had his life 

 been a less lonely one the roughness would have got 

 smoothened, and he would have been as friendly with all 

 other men as with the writer of this little notice, which 

 is intended rather to preserve the memory of a singularly 

 acute and industrious observer of nature, working single- 

 handed, in the face of enormous difficulties, than to 

 imply the least reflection on his tendency to warfare. 

 The distance of Gibson's home, twenty-four miles of 

 coach-road, prevented his often coming to Manchester; 

 but no man was ever more welcome. How different 



