20 
MINUTES OE PEOCEEDINGS OF 
district—-details -^ths of which might seem worthless in the eyes of 
the public, but which would all be precious in the eyes of scientific 
men, who know that no fact is really unimportant, and more, that 
while plodding patiently through seemingly unimportant facts, you may 
stumble on one of infinite importance, both scientific and practical. 
For the student of nature, gentlemen, if he will be but patient, diligent, 
methodical, is liable at any moment to the same good luck as befel 
Saul of old, when he went out to seek his father’s asses, and found 
a kingdom. 
There are those, lastly, who have neither time nor taste for the 
technicalities, the nice distinctions, of formal Natural History; who enjoy 
Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of science. Let 
‘them follow their bent freely : but let them not suppose that in following 
it' they can do nothing towards enlarging our knowledge of Nature, 
especially when on foreign stations. So far from it, drawings ought 
always to be valuable, whether of plants, animals, or scenery, provided 
only they are accurate; and the more spirited and full of genius they 
are, the more accurate they are certain to be; for Nature being alive, 
a lifeless copy of her is necessarily an untrue copy. Most thankful to 
any officer for a mere sight of sketches will be the closet botanist, 
who, to his own sorrow, knows three-fourths of his plants only from 
dried specimens; or the closet zoologist, who knows his animals from 
skins and bones. And if anyone answers. But I cannot draw. I 
rejoin. You can at least photograph. If a young officer, going out 
to foreign parts, and knowing nothing at all about physical science, 
did me the honour to ask me what he could do for science, I should 
tell him, Learn to photograph; take photographs of every strange 
bit of rock-formation which strikes your fancy, and of every widely- 
extended view which may give a notion of the general lie of the 
country. Append, if you can, a note or two, saying whether a plain 
is rich or barren; whether the rock is sandstone, limestone, granitic, 
metamorphic, or volcanic lava ; and if there be more rocks than one, 
which of them lies on the other; and send them to be exhibited at a 
meeting of the Geological Society. I doubt not that the learned 
gentlemen there will find in your photographs a valuable hint or two, 
for which they will be much obliged. I learnt, for instance, what 
seemed to me most valuable geological lessons, from mere glances at 
drawings—I believe from photographs—of the Abyssinian ranges about 
Magdala. 
Or again, let a man, if he knows nothing of botany, not trouble 
himself with collecting and drying specimens; let him simply photo¬ 
graph every strange and new tree or plant he sees, to give a general 
notion of its species, its look; let him append, where he can, a 
photograph of its leafage, flower, fruit, and send them to Dr. Hooker, 
or any distinguished botanist, and he will find that, though he may 
know nothing of botany, he will have pretty certainly increased the 
knowledge of those who do know. 
The sportsman, again—I mean the sportsman of that type which seems 
peculiar to these islands, who loves toil and danger for their own sakes; 
he surely is a naturalist, ipso facto, though he knows it not. He has 
those very habits of keen observation on which all sound knowledge of 
