138 The late Professor Edward Forbes. 



seldom that such a mind is born into the world, and hence our 

 loss. If the rash hand of the fool or the maniac destroys some 

 so-called priceless work of art, — some Portland vase, unique 

 and unequalled in the elegance of its fair and frail propor- 

 tions, — extraordinary human skill may so repair it, that ordinary 

 human sight is deceived into the belief that it stands again 

 before us in its first integrity, almost without a flaw ; but if 

 " the silver cords be loosed," and " the golden bowl be broken/ ' 

 who can re-animate the insensate form 1 The desolate dwell- 

 ing cannot be re-entered, — the fallen column no more upraised 

 upon the earth. 



The residence of our lamented friend was continued almost 

 uninterruptedly in Edinburgh, as his head-quarters, until 1839. 

 We believe that 1837 formed an exceptional season, as he 

 spent that year in Paris studying geology under Constant Pre- 

 vost, mineralogy under Beaudent, and zoology under De Blain- 

 ville and Geoffroy St Hilaire. During the autumn of all 

 these busy and invaluable years he explored some interesting 

 portion of the Continent of Europe, or beyond it, doing good 

 service to science by a somewhat lengthened sojourn, at one 

 time in Illyria, at another in Algiers. The results of these 

 various visitations have been publicly recorded, as were also, 

 about the same period, a short treatise on the Mollusca of the 

 Irish Sea, and several papers on zoology and botany.* 



valleys, from the sea, so there are also equally distinct and different zones of 

 animal and vegetable life, in depth, as we descend (which we can only do by 

 dredging) from the sea-shore, down the mountains, and into the great submerged 

 and sunless valleys, of the ocean. 



* See " Malacologia Monensis," Edin., 1838 ; " On the Land and Fresh- 

 Water Mollusca of Algiers and Bougia," — Annals of Nat. Hist., vol. ii. ; " On 

 the Distribution of Terrestrial Pulmonifera in Europe," — Reports of Brit. Assoc, 



1838 ; " On a Shell-bank in the Irish Sea, considered zoologically and geologi- 

 cally," — Annals of Nat. Hist., vol. iii. ; " Notice of Zoological Researches in 

 Orkney and Shetland during the month of June 1839," — Reports Brit. Assoc. 



1839 ; " On the Asteriadae of the Irish Seas," — Wernerian Memoirs, vol. viii. ; 

 " Keport on the Distribution of Pulmoniferous Mollusca in the British Islands," 

 — Reports Brit. Assoc, 1839; "On the Association of Mollusca on the British 

 Coasts, considered with reference to Pleistocene Geology," — Edin. Acad. Annual, 

 1810; " On a Pleistocene Tract in the Isle of Man, and the relations of its 



