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aided greatly in the formation of his noble collection ; he was a wit- 

 ness of, and a sharer in, his most important investigations ; he was 

 also the depository of his literary treasures ; and if we regard either 

 the number or the nature of his anatomical or physiological re- 

 searches, and the importance of his discoveries, we must be com- 

 pelled to declare that he followed closely and worthily in the foot- 

 steps of his illustrious predecessor : but though he was a most dili- 

 gent observer and collector of facts, and fully qualified, by his ex- 

 tensive knowledge of anatomy and physiology, to collate them with 

 existing materials of those sciences, and to reduce them, as he has 

 done in his lectures, to a regular and well-connected system, yet we 

 should be unjust to the memory of that great man who was his in- 

 structor and patron, if we ventured to place him in the same rank 

 with him. But what name in modern times, if that of Cuvier be 

 excepted, can be put in competition with that of John Hunter, for 

 careful and philosophical induction, and for the power of concen- 

 trating facts derived from most extensive observations upon every 

 part of the animal kingdom, in illustration and confirmation of his 

 physiological theories ? It would be unfair to the memory of Sir 

 Everard Home to subject his merits and his fame to be tried by so 

 severe a test ; rather let us ask, when the vast range of his know- 

 ledge and investigations is considered, who were his rivals or his 

 superiors among his contemporaries, or amongst his survivors ? 



Sir James Hail, Bart., the author of several important papers in 

 the Edinburgh Transactions, in illustration and in defence of the 

 Huttonian Theory, and of a very ingenious and speculative book on 

 the Origin of Gothic Architecture, is another considerable name, 

 whose loss w r e have to deplore. 



In considering the present state of geological science, we are too 

 apt to forget the fluctuations of opinions and of theories through 

 which we have passed in order to arrive at our present state of com- 

 parative repose. It is little more than twenty years since the par- 

 tisans of Hutton and of Werner divided between them the geologi- 

 cal world, and we rarely hear their names now pronounced ; not 

 that their names have passed into oblivion, but that their theories 

 and their speculations have become a portion of the history of the 

 science, and no longer form a part of the debateable materials of 

 which it was, or was not, to be constructed. Sir James Hall, in con- 

 junction with his friend Professor Playfair, was, in the early part 

 of the present century, an ardent vindicator of the opinions of Dr. 

 Hutton ; and it was with a view to the removal of some of the more 

 popular and startling objections to his theory, that he undertook, 

 and continued during several years, those memorable experiments 

 upon the effects of compression in modifying the action of heat, 

 which have contributed so greatly to the termination of the contro- 

 versies which were then agitated with so much warmth and severity. 

 These experiments, most happily conceived, and executed with sin- 

 gular boldness and perseverance, completely proved that the most re- 

 fractory substances may be made fusible by confining the elasticity 

 of the gaseous parts contained in them. Thus, pounded carbonate of 



