122 
JOHN PHILLIPS, F.R.S. 
little patrimony and all his little gains, and he gave np his London 
residence and wandered at his own sweet will among those rocks 
which had been so fatal to his prosperity thougli so favourable to his 
renown. In all this contest for knowledge, under difficulties of no 
ordinary kind, I had my share ; from the hour I entered his house in 
London, and for many years after he quitted it, we were never 
separated in act or thought ; in every drawing or calculation which 
his profession required, in every survey for canal or drainage, or rail- 
way or mine, I had my share of work ; for every book, map, and 
tour my pencil was at his command ; and thus my mind was moulded 
on his, and it seemed to be my destiny to mix as he had done the 
activity of professional life with the interminable studies of geology. 
Thus passed the time till the spring of 1824, when, by the invitation 
of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, then lately established, my 
uncle went to York to deliver a course of lectures on geology, and I 
was his companion. This was the crisis of my life. From that hour 
the acquisitions I had made in natural history and ' fossilogy as 
we then termed the magnificent branch of study now known as 
palaeontology, brought me perpetual engagements in Yorkshire to 
arrange museums, and give lectures on their contents to members of 
Literary and Philosophical Societies. In this manner most of the 
Yorkshire towns which were active in promoting museums of natural 
history and geology were repeatedly visited. York, Scarbro', Hull, 
Leeds, Halifax, and Sheffield became scenes of most valuable friend- 
ships, and the great county in which thirty thoughtful years were 
afterwards passed, became known to me as probably to no others. 
The generous Yorkshire people gave no stinted remuneration for my 
efforts to be useful, and I employed freely all the funds which came 
to my hands in acquiring new and strengthening old knowledge, so 
as to be able to offer instruction in almost any department of nature, 
but especially in Zoology and Geology. By degrees Birmingham, 
Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Newcastle, and other places offered 
me advantages of the same kind as those which always welcomed me 
at home, and when in 1831 the British Association was formed my 
circle of operations had reached the University College, London, then 
under the wardenship of Mr. Leonard Horner. At this time I had 
