and the Birth of Microscopical Petrology. 199 



fhat time he did not remember any paper having been read which 

 drew so largely on their credulity. But very fortunately I had taken 

 some microscopes and objects with me and had shown them to my 

 friend Professor Phillips, of York. He got up and said the chairman 

 might speak as he had done, but he had nothing to do but look 

 through the microscopes and see that such things existed, and they 

 might depend oa it, in a few years, the facts that Mr. Sorby had 

 described would be universally acknowledged to be correct, which has 

 turned out to be true." (" Pifty Years of Scientific Research," p. 9.) 



In spite of John Phillips' characteristically generous intervention, 

 Sorby's paper did not for a long time gain the attention which it 

 deserved. Sorby says himself: " In those early days people laughed 

 at me. They quoted Saussure, who had said that it was not a proper 

 thing to examine mountains with microscopes, and ridiculed my action 

 in every way. Most luckily I took no notice of them." (" Pifty Years 

 of Scientific Research," p. 5.) 



It was in Germany and on the part of Dr. Perdinand Zirkel that 

 Sorby's work was destined to find full and complete recognition. The 

 story has been so well told by Pouque, the account being endorsed by 

 Zirkel himself, that we cannot do better than to quote it. 



"En 1862 il [Sorby] avait entrepris avec sa mere un voyage 

 d'agrement sur les bords du Rhin. Arrive a Bonn, il fit connaissance 

 d'un eleve du corps des mines de Prusse, nomme Zirkel, par lequel 

 il fut accompagne et dirige dans quelques excursions. lis visiterent 

 ensemble I'Eifel, le Siebengebirge, et les environs du lac de Laach. 

 Chaque jour, chemin faisant, une conversation interessante et animee 

 s'engageait entre le touriste et son guide sur la nature des roches 

 volcaniques, sur les mineraux qui les composent, et sur les merveilleux 

 details cle structure que le microscope y revele. Sorby exposait avec 

 clarte et chaleur les magnifiques resultats de ses etudes. Le soir, 

 apres I'excursion de la journee, I'entietien se prolongeait encore. 

 Enfin, de retour a Bonn, le maitre emprovise mit sous les yeux de 

 son jeune auditeur quelques preparations microscopiques qu'il avait 

 apportees, et lui fit apprecier par lui-meme la nettete et I'importance 

 des faits qui avaient ete I'objet de leurs longues causeries. Quelques 

 jours plus tard, en quittant Zirkel, il laissait en lui un disciple 

 enthousiaste, qui, desormais sa consacrant entierement aux etudes 

 de geologie micrographique, allait bientot dans cette voie marcher 

 de decouvertes en decouvertes, grouper autour de lui un essaim 

 de travailleui's, et devenir I'un des savans les plus celebres de 

 I'Allemagne." ^ 



So much in earnest was Zirkel that he at once proceeded to the 

 laboratory of the Reichsanstalt at Vienna, and as the result of his 

 work during the winter prepared a memoir only second in importance 

 to Sorby's own paper. This paper, containing descriptions of the 

 microscopical characters of thirty-nine very typical rocks, was read 

 before the Vienna Academy''' on March 12th, 1863. With splendid 



^ Revue des deux mondes, July 15th, 1879, p. 409. 



- " Mikroskopische Gesteinstudie " : Sitzungsb. d. k. Akad. d. "W. math, naturw. 

 CI., Bd. xlvii, Abth. 1 (1863), pp. 228-290. 



