XXXI 



CHAELES LAPWORTH, 1842-1920. 



In the death of Charles Lapworth in his seventy-eighth year, the science of 

 Geology mourns one who, in the amount and quality of research performed, 

 by the current of fresh ideas with which he was inspired, and in the new 

 direction imparted to the work of his pupils and contemporaries, stands out 

 as one of the leading geologists of his time, worthy to rank with the foremost 

 of the pioneers. When he began his work the glamour of the first fine flush 

 of geological discovery had paled, and it seemed as though the boundaries of 

 the science had been reached, the leading facts disclosed, the main principles 

 laid down. Before his death,- the science had been born again, and new 

 discoveries showed that we were but on the threshold of a great development. 

 The effect of his work was most marked in illuminating the structure of 

 our own country and particularly the older part of it, but the work was so 

 thoroughly done, and the principles involved so soundly established, that its 

 reactions were felt in Scandinavia and Bohemia, in America and Australia, 

 in the Dolomites and the Festoon Islands, while it even touched the ocean 

 depths and the Antarctic continent. 



His first series of researches brought about the realisation of his forecast 

 that the history told by the Older Palaeozoic rocks could be broken up into 

 delicate time divisions comparable with those which heretofore had only 

 proved possible of establishment in the Secondary and Tertiary rocks. This 

 task was effected in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, where he happened to 

 be residing. The rocks in this district are so highly disturbed and convoluted 

 that they had defied the efforts of the best stratigraphers of the time to 

 unravel them. Lapworth was at his best when grappling with a really 

 difficult problem, and, as he saw the necessity for it, he sedulously cultivated 

 those arts of his profession which he realised would alone enable him to 

 solve it. 



Large scale maps were essential — he would survey the ground and produce 

 them ; lithological variations were mimite and obscure — he cultivated his eye 

 and mind to detect and remember them ; the geological mapping of these 

 variations must be painstaking and thorough — even though such detail had 

 never yet been attempted in a complicated district he would carry it to 

 completion ; distances were long and arduous — no exertion should be too 

 great or hardship too severe ; work on sections and maps must be delicate 

 and minute — he would train his hand and eye as an artist ; graptolites were 

 the only fossils — he would learn all that was known about them and find out 

 for himself what else there was to be learnt; search for fossils must be 

 thorough and exhaustive, collection laborious and exact — he knew that this 

 was vital and did not shrink from carrying it out. 



So he worked for fourteen years ; first at Galashiels, then in Roxburgh and 

 Selkirk, next at Moffat, which he realised was the key area, and finally he put 



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