in the presence of a thinker and discoverer and carried away some 

 of the sacred fire which inspired him. One of his former students 

 writes : 



" Lap worth's lectures were unlike any others that I have 

 ever heard, and many of his students felt strongly the inspiration 

 of the man. In particular I recall a lecture of his on the Silurian 

 System. It was indeed a revelation, for the veil of the past was 

 drawn aside and the sequence of geological events was disclosed 

 in a series of pictures of a vividness so intense that the hearers 

 forgot that they were merely listening to words ; they saw the 

 sinking of the coast lines, the deposition of the sediments, the 

 floating weed-borne graptolites, the clearing of the waters as the 

 sea vanquished the land, the marvellous growth of corals, as if 

 the speaker were a painter who had been present through the ages 

 and could show the pictures he had painted and say ' thus and no 

 otherwise it was.' For, in truth, although he gave with scientific 

 precision the evidence for his statements, the words were the words 

 of a poet or an inspired prophet speaking forth the things which 

 he had seen. And then, at the end of the lecture, some character- 

 istically humorous remark, accompanied by a twinkle of his piercing 

 eyes, would suddenly relieve the strain, and with something of a 

 shock we realised the warm humanity of the prophet . The aeroplane 

 had come to earth and the pilot was turning round and smiling at 

 us ! " 



What is true of the lectures is still more true of the excursions, 

 when he was not afraid to ' let himself go ' in the presence of the 

 facts, by which he could be tested but of which he always knew 

 so much more than he felt it necessary to tell. Very few men have 

 ever been able so well as he to visualise the structure of the country 

 when viewed from some commanding point, and to lay it before his 

 hearers so that they too seemed to see the rock-framework under 

 the landscape and the vegetation. He was full of apt analogies, 

 most happy in crisp and adhesive nomenclature, quick to see 

 difficulties or possibilities of confusion, and ready in illustrations, 

 often drawn in the dust with an umbrella, scratched with a knife 

 on a shard of shale, or modelled on the grass with sticks and stones. 

 And always there was just the glimpse of something beyond, 

 towards which the case under consideration was tending but 

 perhaps did not quite prove, sustaining the interest and ' carrying 

 on ' to the next observations. Professor J. E. Marr, in his 

 ' appreciation ' in the Geological Magazine, says* "he would explain 

 the structure of the surrounding country during the frequent 

 intervals between the relighting of his pipe, until its aspects during 

 the different geological periods seemed to glow before the hearer's 

 vision." 



* Geol. Mag., vol. Ivii, 1920, p. 197. 



