MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. To 
case of it. It seems to me that at a time when half the country 
is starving we are utterly neglecting or grossly mismanaging 
ereat sources of wealth and food ... Were I a rich man 
I would make the subject a hobby, for the good of the country 
and for the better proving that the true interests of Government 
are those linked with and inseparable from Science.” 
I have laid more stress upon Forbes’ theoretical papers 
than upon his matter of fact descriptive works. Useful as these 
latter are, indispensable to the systematic zoologist and palae- 
ontologist, works some of them, such as Forbes and Hanley’s 
“ British Mollusca ” (published in 4 vols. between 1848 and 
1853), which will remain as classics for all time, still they are 
books to consult rather than to read. On the other hand, 
his theories—such as those on the distribution of marine animals 
in the Mediterranean, and on the relations of the British 
fauna and flora to the great Ice Age, even if in some respects 
they are now regarded as erroneous or incomplete—have had a 
_ position and an influence in the history of science, have been 
an inspiration to many both in his own generation and since, 
and have led up to and guided the very researches which have, 
in some cases, resulted in more correct views. His theory of 
the “‘ Azoic Zone’ in the sea, that no life existed below 300 
fathoms, based upon his observations in the Eastern Mediter- 
ranean, was justified by the facts known at the time, but 
required to be modified later on when the deep-sea dredging 
expeditions, which Forbes’ work had stimulated, made 
known that an abundant living fauna extended down to the 
greatest depths of the abysses. 
Taken altogether, it is a wonderful volume of work both 
in quantity and quality for a man to have produced who died 
before reaching the age of forty. His working life, even 
considering that he began original work very young, was 
limited to about twenty years, and it is reasonable to suppose 
that had he lived he would have made Edinburgh the greatest 
