Professor Charles Lapirorfh, LL.B., F.R.S. 801 



may bear fresh fruit in new soil, all make him an ideal confidant ; 

 for to him there is nothing that is "common or unclean," each branch 

 of research has its separate value, and he has the faculty of giving 

 those who consult him the impression that their work forms a part 

 of some greater whole ; there is nothing more encouraging to 

 a young man than to find that what he had perhaps considered an 

 isolated line of enquiry is really linked up with the advance of 

 science as a whole. 



Although it comes rather under the head of administrative than 

 educative work, it may be here mentioned that Lapworth's intense 

 belief in the practical and educational value of geology has led him 

 to advocate the teaching of the economic side of the science, not 

 only to miners, prospectors, and engineers, but to those engaged in 

 building, surveying, brewing, and sanitary business, and of the 

 pure science to those who are never likely to make any practical use 

 of it except as a means of enlarging their knowledge of nature. 



Throughout a good deal of friendly antagonism to the Geological 

 Survey he has always retained the personal friendship of its Officers 

 and strenuously maintained the vital importance of that institution to 

 the country ; and acting recently on a Departmental Enquiry into 

 the functions and work of the Survey he has taken his share in 

 remodelling its scope and administration. 



4. Applied Geology. 



During his residence in Birmingham Lapworth has been frequently 

 consulted in matters relating to such subjects as sites, water, and 

 minerals. In this way he has had means of acquiring a vast amount 

 of information, otherwise inaccessible, relating to the structure of the 

 Midland coalfields and their surrounding areas. Indeed, it may be 

 said that one of his main inducements to undertake this class of 

 work has been in order to enrich his knowledge of a branch of 

 science which is practically untouched by the learned societies and 

 the textbooks. The complicated geology of the Midlands, a rugged 

 region covered unconformably by Coal-measures and in most places 

 buried up unconformably by New Red Sandstone, gives rise to 

 a series of difficult problems, each of which must be the subject of 

 a special investigation involving scientific methods, the careful 

 mapping of areas, and the disentangling of the involved structure 

 of difficult districts. In the Midland region, at least, it has become 

 abundantly clear that the most complicated questions of stratigraphy, 

 vulcanicity, and palaeontology, all have an eventual, if not an 

 immediate, application to the economic side of the subject ; and that 

 there is probably no problem in pure geology that will not in the end 

 have its bearing on applied geology. 



In conclusion, one would like, were it permitted, to say a word of 

 the man apart from the geologist. But, after all, is it necessary ? 

 His personality is so well known, his influence so wide, his geniality 

 and kindliness of heart so patent to his friends, that it is quite 

 needless to refer to them ; and his enemies have yet to be discovered. 



