and the Birth of Microscopical Petrology. 201 



the case, the new method was assailed or ridiculed. But Forbes wrote 

 little on the subject except his paper on the Igneous Rocks of South 

 Staffordshire in 1866/ and some articles in popular journals, describing 

 the method and its application. He made an extensive collection of 

 some thousands of rock-sections, however, which is now preserved in 

 the Manchester University. 



In 1864 I went to Sheffield to take charge of a Chemical Laboratory 

 in that town, and had the great privilege and pleasure of making the 

 acquaintance of Sorby. He had then just been led by the study of 

 meteorites to devote his attention to the microscopical character of 

 irons and steels — a research as pregnant with results of technological 

 value as his earlier work has been prolific in scientific developments. 

 I was able to supply him with analysed specimens for his work, and 

 he in return taught me to make and use microscopical sections of 

 rocks. It is interesting to recall the simple methods he employed in 

 those days. A chip broken from the rock to be studied was roughly 

 reduced to a flat-sided fragment, by the aid of a grindstone of coarse 

 sandstone. The subsequent work was done by cementing on a little 

 square of plate glass, and then rubbing on laps with emery and after- 

 wards on hone-stones. Sorby had an amusing faith in the virtue of 

 the skin of his thixmb for putting a final polish on the sections ! 



After joining the Geological Survey in 1867, I sought to utilize 

 the methods taught me by Sorby, and prepared a paper on the " Origin 

 of the Northampton Sand," which was read at the Geological Society 

 on March 16th, 1869 ; it was there very kindly received and ordered 

 to be printed. But the permission to publish was afterwards with- 

 drawn by the authorities, and the paper did not appear till six j^ears 

 afterwards, when it was printed, but without illustrations, in the 

 Survey Memoir I wrote on the Geology of Rutland (1875). Two 

 others of my colleagues at that time, James Clifton AYard and Frank 

 Rutley. also devoted themselves to microscopic work, but with little 

 more encouragement than myself. 



In 1869 Samuel Allport commenced his valuable series of papers on 

 Microscopical Petrography, and in the following year John Arthur 

 Phillips followed suit. Allport led Professor Bonney to take up the 

 subject, and I need only refer to the great work accomplished by 

 himself and his numerous pupils, as establishing the 'use of the method 

 in this country. 



It may be interesting, in concluding this sketch of the history of the 

 origin of Microscopic Petrography, to state that, 58 years after the 

 publication of Sorby's first paper on the subject, the geologists of all 

 lands, who had assembled to celebrate the Centenary of the Geological 

 Society, determined to send their greetings to the veteran investigator 

 to whom they owed so much, and who then lay on his deathbed. 

 Professors Iddings, of Chicago, andLoewinson-Lessing, of St. Petersburg, 

 requested Professor Zirkel and myself, as Sorby's oldest friends, to 

 draw up an address to him, and this was signed by the President 

 of the Society and those who had specially devoted themselves to 

 Microscopical Petrography. The following is a copy of the address : — 



1 Geological Magazine, Vol. Ill (1866), pp. 23-27. 



