13^ Proiuincnt Yorkshire Jl'or/ccrs — Henry iUifton Sorby. 



was beneficial is well proved by what has subsequently taken 

 place, and a perusal of the list of memoirs at the end of these 

 notes is evidence of the benefit of his early method of work. 

 And it must be borne in mind that these memoirs are by no 

 means of the ordinary class of papers, as many of them cer- 

 tainly indicate distinct epochs in the advance of our knowledge 

 of the subjects dealt with. 



It may not be without interest to briefl}" refer to a few of the 

 subjects that have occupied his attention. To even mention 

 them all would be a very serious undertakini^-, such has been the 

 untiring- energy which Dr. Sorby has shown all through his life. 

 It can be safely said that he has never been idle, and when the 

 writer had the pleasure of spending some hours with him only a 

 few days ago, he was much impressed with the Doctor's energy — 

 certainl)' far exceeding that of many men half-a-century his 

 junior. And although he is in his eightieth year, and unable 

 to walk, through an unfortunate series of accidents, he still 

 spends many more hours a day at his work than do most 

 * business '-men, and he has as many ' irons in the fire ' as ever. 



His first papers dealt with animal and vegetable chemistry, 

 and were published so long ago as 1847. About the same time, 

 sheltering from a shower of rain in a quarry near Handsworth, 

 his attention was attracted to what he afterwards called ' current 

 structure,' viz., structures produced in stratified rocks by the 

 action of currents present during their deposition. Since then 

 many more papers on the subject have appeared from his pen, 

 some of them being of a most important character. 



It is in connection with his work with^he microscope that 

 Dr. Sorby is best known. His first piece of microscopical 

 work had reference to the small shells of the so-called ' Bridling- 

 ton Crag.' About the same time he made the acquaintance of 

 the late Prof. Williamson, then practising as a surgeon in 

 Manchester. Williamson showed him his collection of sections 

 of fossil wood, teeth, bones, etc., and explained how they were 

 made. In these Dr. Sorby found new fields for work, and in 

 1849 it occurred to him that much might be done by applying 

 a similar method to the structure of rocks. He was the first 

 to prepare transparent microscopic sections of rocks. Not 

 unnaturally his earlier efforts were laughed at — had not Saussure 

 stated that mountains must not be examined with microscopes 

 Our present knowledge of the structure of rocks, however, is 

 largely due to the fact that Sorby studied on heedless of his 

 critics. 



Naturalist, 



