366 Canadian Pi£cord of Science. 



In 1854; G-psse gave to the world " The Aquarium," a 

 delightful record of eight months hard work on the 

 Dorsetshire Coast, where he had been collecting material 

 for the aquaria of Kegent's Park. The volume was reviewed 

 by Charles Kingsley who subsequently expanded the review 

 into that charming little book i: Glaucus," the pages of 

 which are full of the praises of Gosse, his recently acquired 

 friend. G-osse further extended his acquaintance with the 

 English coast by a visit in 1854 to Tenby in Pembrokeshire. 

 " Its honeycombed rocks and weedy basins " made his work 

 there uniformly brilliant and successful, and a graphic 

 account of his experience is given in u Tenby/' a book which 

 displays more than any other his " air of taking us upon 

 his knees like a grandjjapa." 



He was elected a " Fellow of the Eoyal Society " in 1856, 

 and his treatise on the " Manducatory Organs in the Class 

 Eotifera," published in the Society's Transactions, brought 

 him into further notice in scientific circles. 



But the joy of success was soon dimmed by a great sorrow. 

 Emily G-osse, while helping her husband, attending to 

 household duties, and occupied with the writing of popular 

 Gospel Tracts, had been slowly failing, and in February 

 1854 she died. The loss of this noble woman and true 

 wife marked a crisis in her husband's career. Every year 

 her influence had become more apparent, and had added to 

 the brightness of their life ; but now Gosse became more 

 reserved than ever, and withdrawing to Sandhurst near 

 St. Marychurch, he made there his solitary home. 



Given up to morbid musings and in a state of mental 

 exhaustion, he turned his thoughts towards evolution, a 

 subject to which previously he had paid but little attention. 

 In 1855 he had been presented to Charles Darwin, and had, 

 at once, yielded to the fascinaiion of his simple, cordial 

 nature. For some years he continued in correspondence 

 with him, helping him by investigations and memoranda 

 which tended to strengthen those evolutionary ideas, des- 

 tined to stand opposed to his dearest beliefs. Gosse was not 

 a philosophical thinker, but a minute observer and accurate 



