45 



From the sequence of Lap worth's papers on the Southern 

 Uplands and on the Graptolites, it is evident that his energy and 

 power of work redoubled when he saw that he was up against a 

 really serious problem. In each of his greater pieces of work we 

 realise that one of the chief attractions was the difficulty of getting 

 a solution, and in many cases we are able to see the stages by which 

 he worked and thought out the several steps of it. 



His instinct for crucial tests was a great gift, carefully nurtured. 

 After reading up a subject in which he was interested he could 

 readily see the lines on which it was best to attack the problems 

 Involved, the places where the sections would be most critical, or 

 which of the consequences of a. theory were the simplest to test 

 and the most likely to yield an unequivocal answer. 



The same instinct led him to vary the direction of attack 

 whenever he met with repulse or could not get a definite reply. 

 His papers do not tell us how often he met with preliminary 

 difficulties ; we only see that at last he succeeded, and then he takes 

 us first to the most critical and illuminating places, and, by the use 

 of the evidence there, he lightens our difficulties when we come to 

 those which give less decisive evidence. 



It was this elasticity of attack which so much impressed the 

 great French geologist, Marcel Bartrand, and led him to write in 

 1892 as follows : 



*" Peu de carrier es geologiques off rent 1'exemple de succes 

 comparable a ceux de M. Lapworth. Dans le sud de 1'Ecosse, 

 c'est a 1'aide des graptolithes, organismes inferieures, dont la valeur 

 paleontologique pouvait sembler contestable, qu'il a etabli des 

 horizons dans un serie qui avait defie tous les efforts, et les zones 

 etablies dans le petit coin de Dobbs Linn se retrouvent maintenant 

 dans toute 1' Europe et j usque dans 1'Amerique. Pour le nord de 

 1'Ecosse, c'est avec des donnees moindres encore, avec des traces 

 de vers, avec des differences lithologiques de couleur et de grain, 

 qu'il a fixe ses horizons, qui, la encore, se sont trouves d'une con- 

 stance et d'une extension inattendues. A 1'aide de ces outils qu'il 

 a forges lui meme et que d'autres eussent de*daignes, il a donne 

 la clef de la geologic de deux grandes provinces de 1'Ecosse." 



Courage and resource in attack were accompanied by patience 

 and courage of endurance. He could wait years, and had to do 

 so, for the recognition of the value of his Upland and Highland 

 work, and longer still for the application of it to bear the fruit which 

 he knew it was capable of yielding. But when his ideas had been 

 perforce accepted and his methods adopted there was the courage 

 of restraint in success. 



* Revue generate des Sciences pures et Appliquees, No. 23 (Dec., 1892)' 

 p. 9 (of separate). 



