300 Professor Charles Lapicorih, LL.D., F.R.S. 



of information, but almost invariably he happens upon points which 

 rouse genuine interest. His department not only covers so much of 

 Geology as can be crammed into the limited time allotted to the 

 study, but he has started and maintained large classes in Geography, 

 dwelling particularly on those parts of the study which admit of 

 scientific treatment. Indeed, these classes, the bearing of the 

 Edinburgh address, and the bias of much of his own research, are 

 all symptoms of his attitude towards the sister science, regarding 

 Geology as the Geography of the past, and Geography as the 

 Geology of the present. He has aroused a widespread local interest 

 in Geology by delivering afternoon and evening lectures of a more 

 popular but still systematic character, by holding weekly excursions 

 during the Summer, and by delivering occasional lectures in the 

 neighbouring towns. Amongst the characteristic features of his 

 teaching may be mentioned the classes on structural and field 

 geology, his economic courses, and his research classes. His classes 

 on structui'al geology learn the principles which guide the field 

 geologist's work, and his practical class spends a term in the actual 

 mapping of a Midland district on the six - inch scale, with the 

 accompanying oflSce-work. One or more workers are generally to 

 be found in the research department engaged upon graptolites, 

 trilobites, brachiopods, rock-specimens, or other material collected 

 in the field. In order that he may have a larger amount of time to 

 devote to investigation and to those portions of his teaching which 

 may be regarded as special to himself, the lovers of science in the 

 oity and district have provided him with an assistant-professor to 

 take the rest of his College teaching. 



For many years a Geological Section of the Birmingham Natural 

 History and Philosophical Society has met in his rooms in the 

 Mason College. The largest contributor of papers and subjects for 

 discussion has been the Professor himself, but the first drafts of 

 many papers afterwards contributed to the greater learned societies 

 have often been read and discussed by his students in that Section. 



By conducting long excursions for the Geologists' Association, the 

 British Association, and other bodies, into districts with which he was 

 especially familiar, by publishing papers and guidebooks descriptive 

 of the regions to be studied, and by his textbooks on geology and 

 physical geography, his teaching has reached a wider circle. 



But more far-reaching still has been his influence amongst 

 specialists. The zonal and graptolite work has been taken up by 

 many observers in similar lines of research, not only in Britain, 

 but all over the world, in Scandinavia, Bohemia, France, Canada, 

 and the United States. The value of his advice and assistance has 

 been felt again and again by scientific investigators. His faculty 

 for picking out exceptional facts, the patience which enables him 

 to listen to a long and detailed account of a research, the avidity 

 with which he seizes on those points which fit in with or run 

 counter to his own theories, his delight in each bit of new discovery, 

 and, above all. his encouraging sympathy and the generous manner 

 in which he gives his own ideas and principles in the hope that they 



