Professor Charles Lapicortli, LL.D., F.R.8. 297 



any interposition of the personality of the artist. The large-scale 

 drawings are afterwards reduced by means of photography to the 

 natural size of the fossil. The monograph is now being written and 

 illusti-ated jointly by Miss EUes and Miss Wood under Dr. Lapworth's 

 editorship. 



A rapid reader, with the faculty of quickly ' tearing the heart out 

 of a book,' of 'spotting' mistakes into which a writer may have 

 fallen, and of seeing the importance of an author's facts even when 

 his interpretation is wrong, Lapworth goes to his work, whether in 

 the field or the study, with a clear view of the problems to be faced 

 and a knowledge of the crucial points for testing hypotheses, of 

 which he has generally plenty on hand ready for immediate use. 

 Thus it often happens that the main points in a research are settled 

 in a few days, but, meanwhile, a host of new problems have arisen, 

 and for their solution it is necessary to work out the district 

 thoroughly. As Px'ofessor Marcel Bertrand pertinently puts it, 

 Lapworth's widest results have been often arrived at "a I'aide de 

 ces outils qu'il a forges lui-meme et que d'autres eussent dedaignes." 

 This, coupled with a keen zest for outdoor work, which carries him 

 out into the field on every fine day and most wet ones if they 

 happen to be Saturdays or in holiday-time, accounts for the large 

 amount of single-handed field-work that he has accomplished. His 

 own explanation is, that it is simply the natural outcome of a child- 

 hood spent among books in lieu of companions, of a manhood blessed 

 by the constant encouragement and aid of his friends, and of almost 

 a lifetime passed in the sympath}' of his pupils. 



The keenness in understanding and appreciating the work of 

 others, which led Lapworth to abstract parts of Heira's Alpine 

 treatise in order to show that there was nothing new in the 

 principles employed in his own Highland work except their 

 application to that district, and which is further exemplified in his 

 appreciative memoirs of his early scientific friends Linnarsson, 

 Nicholson, and Crosskey, is accompanied by a vivid imagination 

 which enables him to visualize accurately the subjects on which he 

 reads, a power of recognizing connecting links between severed lines 

 of enquiry, and a faculty for picking out those exceptions to laws 

 which indicate the existence of some greater law including the less. 



In his two papers " On the Tripartite Classification of the Older 

 Paleeozoic Rocks" (1879) and "The Close of the Highland Con- 

 trovei'sy " (1885) we see Lapworth in another light. In these 

 tactful endeavours to still controversy, neither of them fruitless, 

 we see such a grip of the subjects dealt with as to indicate 

 complete mastery of the literature, independent thought, extreme 

 care and skill in the presentation of conclusions and suggestions, 

 and just that gentle suspicion of the authority which his own 

 work on the subjects dealt with entitled him to assert. In 

 each case Lapworth brought out the best points in the discoveries 

 of the rival pioneers, and showed that of such points those 

 which were vital were generally the common property of the 

 rivals and their schools ; but he indicated most firmly that past 



