76 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Forbes was certainly the most briliant and inspiring 
naturalist of his day—a day when it was still possible to 
make original contributions to knowledge in several depart- 
ments of nature. As we have seen, he held posts successively 
as Professor of Botany in London, as Palacontologist to the 
Geological Survey, and as Professor of Natural History in 
Edinburgh ; but to my mind the best description in brief 
form is that he was the pioneer of oceanography—the science 
of the sea. 
Fie. 7. From the portrait in Wilson and Geikie’s Memoir. 
It is true that the term oceanography was not coined 
till much later, and that Forbes in his marine explorations 
probably did not realise that he was opening up a most com- 
prehensive and important department of knowledge. But 
