212 FOTHERGILL'S SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS CHAP. 



conchology. He admired the beauty of shells and their 

 variety, and his large acquaintance with travellers gave 

 him opportunities of constantly adding to those which 

 he had found himself. By the aid of every book he 

 could discover and of his own ingenuity he arranged his 

 shells in classes, according to their structure, and his 

 cabinet came to be, next to the Duchess of Portland's, 

 the best in England. His shells and corals were offered 

 after his death by Fothergill's desire to his friend Dr. 

 William Hunter for a sum 500 less than the valuation ; 

 and they now form part of the Hunterian Museum in 

 Glasgow. 



In following these pursuits, Fothergill often met that 

 wayward Hebrew genius, Mendez Da Costa, whose 

 scientific enthusiasm atoned for some less honourable 

 traits of character. Collinson received a letter from Da 

 Costa in 1747 dated from the bottom of a coal-pit, 135 

 feet deep, at Swanwich in Cheshire, where he was hunting 

 for fossils. His friend rallied him on his exploit, and 

 pictured him revisiting the regions of light full of the 

 vapours of nitre and sulphur : there would ensue a 

 terrible explosion : " Out bursts a new hypothesis, the 

 theory of the earth shakes, and down tumble poor Wood- 

 ward, Wilkins, Derham, Burnet and all." " Thou art 

 the archest wag alive," writes Collinson another day, 

 when Da Costa had cajoled an old Don to part with his 

 fossils and a hortus siccus. He brought many fossils and 

 minerals for Fothergill to purchase, as well as books from 

 abroad. Always short of money, Da Costa borrowed 

 habitually from his patron, and was ever importuning 

 him to spend on some fine new specimen. Debt, dis- 

 honesty and prisons at length marred the poor man's 

 career ; but these did not hinder Fothergill from still 

 befriending him, for he would sometimes employ those 

 whose conduct he disapproved, that they might not 

 again be driven by distress to evil ways. Fothergill 

 patronised his lectures, helped him to bring out his 

 works on conchology, advising him, contributing facts 

 and many of the notes, lending him specimens and books, 



