142 



PROFESSOR EDWARD FORBES. 



.[1855. 



nant affections. Wliilo yet a student, he published his first work, 

 ' Malacologia Monensis ;' in this he described the mollusca of his na- 

 tive island — the Isle of iMan. To the Edinburgh Student's Annual of 

 1840 he contributed a paper ' On the Association of Mollusca on the 

 British Coasts, considered with reference to Pleistocene Geology.' And 

 during his residence in Edinburgh in 1840-41, he wrote and published 

 his work on ' British Starfishes.' " 



The name of Edward Forbes is also associated with one of the 

 nopular institutions of Edinbm-gh, which has not been without its 

 influence on modern literature. In the Philosophical Institution of 

 that city — somewhat analogous to the Mechanics' Institutes of Canada, 

 though there markedly distinguished from the School of Arts, which 

 more fitly performs the functions of a People's College — Edward Forbes 

 gave the first publicity to many of those principles and ideas, which he 

 subsequently elaborated in his most valued contributions to science. 

 Among his colleagues, as lecturers to the Philosophical Institution of 

 Edinburgh at that time, were his fellow-students Mr. Goodsir, Dr. 

 Wilson, and Dr. Samuel Brown, and a greater publicity has been given 

 to other courses of lectures, such as those of Dr. Moir (Delta), Hugh 

 Miller, Aytoun, Kingsley and Ruskin, by their subsequent issue, in form 

 or substance, from the press. 



In the year 1838, Sir Charles Fellows, when travelling in Asia Minor, 

 explored the ancient province of Lycia, and made many interesting 

 discoveries in relation to that country, of which, till then, our know- 

 ledge was almost exclusively limited to the mythic legends of Homer 

 and the historical records of Herodotus. The report furnished by Sir 

 Charles Fellows of his discoveries in that ancient site of Greek coloni- 

 zation led to a Government expedition being despatched to the Levant, 

 among the fruits of which were the beautiful Lycian and Xanthian 

 marbles, now in the British Museum. Mr. Edward Forbes was selected 

 as Naturalist to this expedition, and as such was attached to H.M. 

 surveying ship Beacon, which sailed for its destination in the spring of 

 1841. 



He had, in consequence of this, an opportunity of exploring some of 

 the most interesting and least known parts of Asia Minor, in company 

 with the Eev. E. T. Daniell and Lieutenant Spratt. Mr. Daniell died 

 of sickness brought on by the climate, and a similar illness attacked 

 Mr. Forbes, the effects of which, there is reason to believe, he never 

 entirely recovered from. Soon after his return, he published, jointly 

 with Mr. Spratt, an account of the expedition. This work, "Spratt's 

 and Forbes's Lycia," besides its contributions to naltural history, de- 

 tailed the discovery of many ancient Lycian and Greek cities. Mr. 

 Forbes's appointment to tho Chair of Botany in King's College, London, 

 took place, unexpectedly by him, diu-ing his absence in the East, and 

 not long after, he was appointed secretary and curator to the Geological 

 Society of London. In this position his extended knowledge of recent 

 vegetable and animal species, and his remarkable acquaintance with 

 the laws of their distribution (particularly as regards invertebrate ani- 

 mals), became available for general palffiontological research. Here, 

 too, he was enabled to apply to geology that peculiar knowledge of the 

 conditions of existence of species, which his continual operations with 

 the dredge had disclosed to him. It is to him, indeed, that we owe 

 the methodical use of the dredge as an instrument of research in na- 

 tural history ; to use his own words, " the dredge is an instrument as 

 valuable to a naturalist as a thermometer to a natural philosopher." 

 At his instance, the British Association appointed for several years a 

 dredging committee, charged with the duty of completing our know- 

 ledge of marine animals, with a view to geological inquiry. 



The British association for the advancement of science was a 

 favourite field of labour. There he resumed his cooperation with some 

 of the most distinguished amonghis old fellow-students, and entered into 

 honorable rivalry with the veterans in his favourite pursuits. In the 

 natural history and geological sections, it will be difficult indeed to 

 find any to supply his place. " He was transferred from the curatoi- 

 Ehip of the geological society to the stafi' of Sir Henry de la B^che for 

 the geological survey of Great Britain and Ireland, in which the palre- 

 ontological department was specially committed to him. He co-operated 

 with his colleagues in arranging the Museum of Economic Geology 

 established by the government in London, and at the same time held 

 the lectureship of natural history in the relation to geology in that 

 institution. During his connection with the geological survey, besides 

 necessary field operations, he made descriptions and superintended the 

 drawing and engraving of numerous fossil species, and contributed 

 many valuable memoirs on geological subjects. About the same time 

 he also wrote, in conjunction with Mr. Hanley, the comprehensive and 

 beautifcdly illustrated history of " British Mollusca," which, like his 

 earlier but not less remarkable history of "British Starfishes," forms 



part of the valuable series of natural history works published by Van 

 Voorst." The death of the veteran Professor Jamieson, who had filled 

 the chair of natural history in the University of Edinburgh for upwards 

 of half a century, left vacant tho post which had been long looked for- 

 ward to by the friends of Edward Forbes as peculiarily suited for him ; 

 and accordingly, by the unanimous voice of the patrons, he succeeded 

 to a chair which seemed to promise the fulfilment of all the most 

 cherished wishes of his life. It also transferred him to congenial duties 

 precisely similar to those he had already so admirably fulfilled in con- 

 nection with the English Geological Survey ; the preliminary stepa 

 having just before been take for establishing the Scotish museum of 

 economic geology at Edinburgh. At the same time he looked upon his 

 removal from London as an escape from many harassing duties and 

 claims that seriously encroached on his time, and he spoke to his 

 intimate friends, as though he had for the first time succeeded to such 

 congenial duties as promised to permit his reaping the fruits of all his 

 earlier labour's and studies. On his appointment to the Edinburgh 

 chair of natural history he at once commenced its more immediate 

 duties, and delivered a course of lectures to a crowded class-room 

 during the summer term of the past year. Up to the time of his last 

 illness he was dilligently engaged in organising plans for the extension 

 of the University Museum of which he was keeper ; while the last 

 labours of his pen were employed in revising the elaborate paper, pre- 

 pared to accompany the geological and palseontological maps for the 

 new edition of Johnston's "Physical Atlas." 



A recent number of the Athenceum, published on Saturday, 

 November 18th, the very day of his death, reviewed the four parts 

 of the Physical Atlas, specially noticing the map prepared by 

 Professor Forbes to illustrate the distribution of marine life. This 

 brief notice, thus issuing from the press at the very time when he to 

 whom it referred was closing his eye on all earthly things, and the 

 hand that had executed this, its last task, so well, was "forgetting its 

 cunning," does justice to the work. The reviewer remarks : — " the 

 map by Prof. E. Forbes is new to this edition ; and contains an epitome 

 of his researches on the distribution of marine animals on the surface 

 of the earth. The illustrations are selected from the fishes, Mollusca 

 and Radiala. The careful manner in which Prof. Forbes has worked 

 out this subject, and the important results at which he has arrived, 

 render it desirable that all other families of animals and plants should, 

 if possible be illustrated in the same way." 



Professor Edward Forbes was a man of remarkable energy and 

 perseverance, as well as of singular and varied talent, and in private 

 one of the most delightful companions. He drew with great case and 

 spirit, and also with considerable humour ; as is shown in the comic 

 tailpieces, appended to his "British Starfishes," all the illustrations 

 of which are from his own pencil. His comic vein also found vent 

 not unfrequently in verse, and it was a special treat when intimate 

 friends were gathered together, not only to recall the humorous records 

 in verse of '' The Great Snowball Riot " of old college days, when the 

 military had to be called out to quell the insubordination of the exhu- 

 berant students, but to coax from him some later effusion dedicated to 

 the " wars of science," the strifes of the modern Caractacus in the 

 '^ Silurian Fields," or the great battle of the "Dodo," once waged so 

 fiercely in association sections. 



These, however, were but the playful pastimes of genius, wherewith 

 in genial intellectual scintillations, he showed the healthful vigour of 

 his mind. Edward Forbes, — as his old friends alone can designate 

 him — was pre-eminently a naturalist. His attention had never been 

 exclusively directed to any one of the Natural Sciences. He was 

 equally a botanist, a zoologist, and a geologist, from first to last. — 

 With a remarkable eye and tact for the discrimination of species and 

 the allocation of natural groups, he combined the utmost delicacy in 

 the perception of Organic and Cosmical relations. He possessed that 

 rare quality, so remarkable in the great masters of Natural History, 

 Linntous and Cuvier, the power of availing himself of the labours of 

 his brethren — not, as is too often the case, by appropriating theu- 

 acquisitions, but by associating them voluntarily in the common 

 labour. Entirely destitute of jealousy in scientific matters, he rather 

 erred in overrating than in underrating the services of his friends. — 

 He was consequently as much beloved and confided in by his seniors in 

 science as by the youngest naturalists of his acquaintance. We find 

 him, accordingly, in the earlier period of his career, taking an active 

 part in geological and zoological discussion and publication with his 

 veteran predecessor in the Edinburgh Chair of Natural History and 

 his othej: fellow-members of the Wernerian Society, at the same time 

 that, along with his early teacher, Dr. Graham, the late Professor of 

 Botany at Edinburgh, his friends Drs. Neill and Greville, and a group 



