XXVm PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



of England,' exhibiting at the same time a more than usual taste for 

 drawing. 



He visited London at the age of sixteen, and was then engaged in 

 studying drawing under Sass, but this was not enough to occupy his 

 eager and ardent mind. He proceeded in 1831 to Edinburgh, where 

 he devoted his whole time and energies to the pursuit of his favourite 

 subject of natural history, while professing to overcome his repug- 

 nance for the study of medicine, the ostensible object of his matri- 

 culation. But medicine as a profession had no charms for one whose 

 w^hole soul was filled with a love of the beautiful, and with an intense 

 admiration of the works of Nature in every varied form. He culti- 

 vated his taste for natural history under the able teaching of such 

 men as Professors Jameson and Graham. He delighted particularly 

 in the botanical excursions of the latter, who was accustomed period- 

 ically to lead forth his pupils to the Highlands ; thus making Nature 

 herself, in her truest and loveliest garb, afford the practical illustra- 

 tions of the teaching of the class-room. 



At this period of his life, scarcely a year passed without some 

 botanizing or dredging excursion, and long before he arrived at 

 manhood, he had made himself well acquainted with the Fauna 

 of the Irish Sea, on the shores of his native island, i^t the age 

 of eighteen, in company with a fellow student, he made an excur- 

 sion to Norway, where he spent some weeks exploring the wild 

 and romantic districts of the country', adding to his zoological and 

 botanical observations. Already, at this time, Edward Forbes began 

 to direct his attention to botanical geography, the forerunner of those 

 deep and philosophical views respecting the geographical distribution 

 of the Flora and Fauna of the world which he subsequently deve- 

 loped, and which constitute one of the most interesting and leading 

 features of all his writings. 



In 1835, Edward Forbes visited the iVlps ; in 1837 he was pro- 

 secuting his studies at Paris under Prevost, Beudant, Geoffroy St. 

 Hilaire, and De Blainville, and in May of the same year we hear of 

 him at Algiers ; the result of this expedition w^as an account of the 

 land and freshwater mollusca of Algiers and. Bougia, published in the 

 * Annals of Natural History' for May 1839. 



With the same view of prosecuting his researches in natural 

 history, he visited Styria and Carniola in 1838, his remarks on 

 which were published in the ' Proceedings of the Botanical Society.* 

 In the summers of 1839 and 1840 he delivered at Edinburgh, whilst 

 still a student, a course of scientific lectures on zoology, as well as 

 one of a more popular nature, in which he pointed out the bearings 

 of zoology on geology. I mention this as a subject of peculiar in- 

 terest to us, as indicating the commencement of those views which, 

 by their subsequent development and their growing importance in the 

 hands of Edward Forbes, have exercised such a iDeneficial and prac- 

 tical influence on the study of geology. 



The time was now fast approaching when Edward Forbes was to 

 find a wider sphere for the exercise of his brilliant genius. In 1841 

 he published his ' History of British Star Fishes and other Echino- 



