WOMEN AS INSPIRERS 373 



and physical experimentation which led to such marvelous 

 results. He was always proud to call her his first teacher, 

 and never hesitated to attribute to her that taste for scien- 

 tific research for which he became so preeminent. And it 

 was his devoted wife who was not only a helpmate but a 

 soulmate as well for nearly half a century, that had very 

 much to do with the splendid development of the germ 

 which had been placed in his youthful mind by Mrs. 

 Marcet. 



The same may likewise be asserted of the wives of two 

 distinguished geologists Charles Lyell and Xavier Hom- 

 maire de Hell. Mrs. Lyell was intimately associated with 

 her husband in all his scientific undertakings, and her 

 ready intellect contributed immensely toward securing for 

 him that enviable position which he attained of being the 

 premier geologist of his century. Mme. Hommaire de Hell 

 deserves special mention in the history of geology for the 

 invaluable assistance which she gave her husband in the 

 scientific exploration of the basin of the Caspian Sea. Not 

 only did she share his labors and perils in this then wild 

 part of the world, and collaborate with him in the prepara- 

 tion of the report for which the French government con- 

 ferred on him the Cross of the Legion of Honor, but she 

 also wrote unaided the two descriptive volumes of their 

 great work, Steppes de la Mer Caspienne. Her part of 

 this great undertaking received the special commendation 

 of M. Villemain, who was the minister of public instruc- 

 tion, and had she not belonged to the disenfranchized sex, 

 she, too, would have been decorated with the Cross of the 

 Legion of Honor. 



All the world has heard of the daring explorations of 

 Baker and Livingstone in the Dark Continent, but how 

 few are aware of the important part taken in their great 

 enterprises by their devoted and heroic wives? Sir Samuel 

 Baker immortalized himself by discovering Lake Albert 

 Nyanza, one of the main sources of the Nile, but in attain- 



