The late Mt\ H. M. Jenkins. 
173 
sufficiently indicate ; and in particular he had worked with his 
friend, Dr. Duncan, on a then new fossil {^Palseocoryne — from 
the Carboniferous Limestone) — and a paper giving the results of 
their research was read before the Royal Society in 1867, and 
published in the ' Philosophical Transactions.' It has since 
been the centre of much discussion among palaeontologists, who 
still differ hopelessly on the subject of its classificatory position. 
" There it is I " exclaimed the doctor — enthusiastic now as ever 
— pointing to a number of small translucent spikelets in a glass 
case ; " the most beautiful thing the Almighty ever made, and 
one of the most useful, since it is a standing rebuke of that 
intellectual pride which imagines all knowledge to be within 
its grasp." " Nor was the enthusiasm and love of detail 
which Jenkins then showed," says Dr. Duncan, " without 
the solid ballast of an unusually sound judgment. One of 
his friends who consulted him about that time on his own 
affairs ( — engaged in a medical partnership, he had discovered 
what he believed to be carelessness and inaccuracies in the 
partnership accounts) has told me that he went to the young 
Secretary at the rooms of the Geological Society in great 
anxietv. ' You do well to be anxious,' was the reply ; ' you 
will find that this is not the first blunder which your partner 
has made. Men who are fifty years of age don't then begin to 
make mistakes. What they do then is the outcome of habit, 
and I advise you to look also into previous years if you want 
to learn the whole truth of the matter,' — which accordingly he 
did, with great advantage to himself." In addition then to 
habits, already formed, of systematic industry — thanks to which 
be had acquired literary ability and scientific knowledge and 
exact acquaintance with some branches of science — here, it is 
plain, was an old head on young shoulders. Having also 
youth and energy on his side, such a man was fit for any office 
he might desire to undertake. 
It is the application, four years later, which he made for the 
position then advertised as vacant in the offices of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, that is virtually the commencement of this 
memoir. 
After the death, in 1868, of Mr. Frere, the former Editor of 
the ' Journal ' of the Royal Agricultural Society, the Council 
resolved that the two offices of Editor and Secretary should be 
united. An advertisement was accordingly published, and 
it brought no fewer than forty-six applicants before them. 
The applications were referred to a Special Committee, each 
member having all the testimonials to examine at home. When 
they met in Hanover Square, it was found that a decided 
majority had fixed upon one out of the forty-six as the man 
