52 



3n flDemoriam. 



ROBERT LAW, F.G.S. 

 Born 2ist June, 1840, Died 29th December, 1907. 



(plate VIII.). 



It has been said that ' the besetting sin of a friendly biographer 

 is to overpraise the subject of his sketch, and, in particular, to 

 magnify the promise of his early days.' 



The subject of this memoir, in his earlier years, so far as 

 we can learn, gave few, if any, signs of ever becoming 

 interested in knowledge or science : on the contrary, at the 

 age of fourteen he could neither read nor write, and was con- 

 sidered to be the dunce of the family ; indeed, thus far, neither 

 heredity nor environment appeared to favour the development 

 of the boy into an ardent and devoted votary of geology. 



Robert Law was born 21st June, 1840, at HoUingworth, 

 Walsden, Todmorden. His father was a handloom weaver, 

 with a family of ten children of whom Robert was the youngest. 

 At an early age he began to work full time in a Walsden Cotton 

 Mill, where his backward education, due to truanting, etc., 

 laid him open to the taunts of his co-workers, and these, supple- 

 mented by the reproaches of his brothers and sisters, seem to 

 have spurred him on to the resolution, if it were possible, to 

 educate himself. He at once carried out this intention by 

 joining a night-school, which he diligently attended for some 

 years. So enamoured did he become of study, that he threw 

 himself with ardour into every local effort for the promotion 

 of learning ; identified himself with the active work of the 

 Walsden Institute, and for sixteen years was intimately asso- 

 ciated with its growth and development. His walks in the 

 countr}^ were made with a purpose, and he even took lessons 

 from a Todmorden taxidermist in the art of skinning and pre- 

 serving birds. Whenever he came across any curiously marked 

 stone, he placed it amongst a collection which he was sorting 

 in cupboards and boxes, and as this becam.e too bulky, he was 

 coiTkpeUed to turn all out into the garden to adorn a rocker3^ 



All this time Robert had no idea that there was such a 

 science as geology, or that his liking for curious rocks and 

 stones had any relation to it. 



Naturalist, 



