42 



2. Text Books. 



It is hardly to be expected that much of an author's personality 

 should permeate his textbooks, but here we have an exception. 

 Into his editions of Page's introductory textbooks on Physical 

 Geography and Geology, Lapworth brought much new material, 

 but in the case of the latter work he freed himself from the shackles 

 of the old edition when he issued his own ' Intermediate Textbook 

 of Geology.' The main feature of this book is not only its grasp 

 of principles but the wonderful way in which the stratigraphical 

 and historical portion, usually a heterogeneous mass of unrelated 

 facts, falls into an ordered whole, the picture of each System being 

 clear and bright, and the history included in it, both at home and 

 abroad, being vividly told, and brought out in marked individuality 

 and clear relation to events before and after. 



3. Old Students and others. 



But it is not to lectures or books only that we must look for 

 the effect of Lapworth's influence as a great teacher. His work 

 was so well known, his judgment and sympathy so highly prized, 

 his genius so much respected, that old students, scientific friends, 

 and workers in geology constantly sought his help, advice, and 

 encouragement. He was one of those rare men who have the 

 faculty not only of projecting themselves into the interests and 

 dreams of their friends, but also the marvellous knack of drawing 

 out their best from them, of inducing them to reveal their inmost 

 thoughts, and of learning by alluring questions what they know and 

 believe, and the grounds of their knowledge and belief. 



He was himself so full of ideas and so generous in imparting 

 them, while at the same time he was so eager to hear of new work 

 and to gauge its value, and so deeply interested in all branches of 

 his subject, that he made a most delightful confidant, and his 

 visitors were assured of his sympathy and patience. He hoped 

 always to acquire new information or new light on old information 

 which would react on the observations of himself or others. What 

 he gained for his own work in this way was insignificant in com- 

 parison with what he gave back to his interlocutor in the form of 

 suggestion or theory, sympathy and encouragement. No man 

 was ever so lavish in original ideas, the most precious possession 

 of a scientific worker, or so generous and trustful in planting them 

 where he thought or hoped they would bear fruit. His ideas and 

 suggestions have fertilised the research of a whole generation of 

 geologists, not only in this country but abroad. When presenting 

 the Wollaston Medal in 1899, Mr. Whitaker, then President of the 

 Geological Society, referred to *" the highest of all teaching, the 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. Iv, 1899, p. 40. 



