HELPS AND OPPORTUNITIES—SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS.
“Neither the naked hand, nor the understanding, left to itself, can
do much; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps, of which
the need is not less for the understanding than the hand.”—_Bacon_.
“Opportunity has hair in front, behind she is bald; if you seize her
by the forelock you may hold her, but, if suffered to escape, not
Jupiter himself can catch her again.”—_From the Latin_.
ACCIDENT does very little towards the production of any great result in
life. Though sometimes what is called “a happy hit” may be made by a
bold venture, the common highway of steady industry and application is
the only safe road to travel. It is said of the landscape painter
Wilson, that when he had nearly finished a picture in a tame, correct
manner, he would step back from it, his pencil fixed at the end of a long
stick, and after gazing earnestly on the work, he would suddenly walk up
and by a few bold touches give a brilliant finish to the painting. But
it will not do for every one who would produce an effect, to throw his
brush at the canvas in the hope of producing a picture. The capability
of putting in these last vital touches is acquired only by the labour of
a life; and the probability is, that the artist who has not carefully
trained himself beforehand, in attempting to produce a brilliant effect
at a dash, will only produce a blotch.
Sedulous attention and painstaking industry always mark the true worker.
The greatest men are not those who “despise the day of small things,” but
those who improve them the most carefully. Michael Angelo was one day
explaining to a visitor at his studio, what he had been doing at a statue
since his previous visit. “I have retouched this part—polished
that—softened this feature—brought out that muscle—given some expression
to this lip, and more energy to that limb.” “But these are trifles,”
remarked the visitor. “It may be so,” replied the sculptor, “but
recollect that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.” So
it was said of Nicholas Poussin, the painter, that the rule of his
conduct was, that “whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well;”
and when asked, late in life, by his friend Vigneul de Marville, by what
means he had gained so high a reputation among the painters of Italy,
Poussin emphatically answered, “Because I have neglected nothing.”
Although there are discoveries which are said to have been made by
accident, if carefully inquired into, it will be found that there has
really been very little that was accidental about them. For the most
part, these so-called accidents have only been opportunities, carefully
improved by genius. The fall of the apple at Newton’s feet has often
been quoted in proof of the accidental character of some discoveries.
But Newton’s whole mind had already been devoted for years to the
laborious and patient investigation of the subject of gravitation; and
the circumstance of the apple falling before his eyes was suddenly
apprehended only as genius could apprehend it, and served to flash upon
him the brilliant discovery then opening to his sight. In like manner,
the brilliantly-coloured soap-bubbles blown from a common tobacco
pipe—though “trifles light as air” in most eyes—suggested to Dr. Young
his beautiful theory of “interferences,” and led to his discovery
relating to the diffraction of light. Although great men are popularly
supposed only to deal with great things, men such as Newton and Young
were ready to detect the significance of the most familiar and simple
facts; their greatness consisting mainly in their wise interpretation of
them.
The difference between men consists, in a great measure, in the
intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the
non-observant man, “He goes through the forest and sees no firewood.”
“The wise man’s eyes are in his head,” says Solomon, “but the fool
walketh in darkness.” “Sir,” said Johnson, on one occasion, to a fine
gentleman just returned from Italy, “some men will learn more in the
Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe.” It is the mind that
sees as well as the eye. Where unthinking gazers observe nothing, men of
intelligent vision penetrate into the very fibre of the phenomena
presented to them, attentively noting differences, making comparisons,
and recognizing their underlying idea. Many before Galileo had seen a
suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured beat; but he was
the first to detect the value of the fact. One of the vergers in the
cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with oil a lamp which hung from the
roof, left it swinging to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of only
eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the
measurement of time. Fifty years of study and labour, however, elapsed,
before he completed the invention of his Pendulum,—the importance of
which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can
scarcely be overrated. In like manner, Galileo, having casually heard
that one Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle-maker, had presented to Count
Maurice of Nassau an instrument by means of which distant objects
appeared nearer to the beholder, addressed himself to the cause of such a
phenomenon, which led to the invention of the telescope, and proved the
beginning of the modern science of astronomy. Discoveries such as these
could never have been made by a negligent observer, or by a mere passive
listener.
While Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown was occupied in studying the
construction of bridges, with the view of contriving one of a cheap
description to be thrown across the Tweed, near which he lived, he was
walking in his garden one dewy autumn morning, when he saw a tiny
spider’s net suspended across his path. The idea immediately occurred to
him, that a bridge of iron ropes or chains might be constructed in like
manner, and the result was the invention of his Suspension Bridge. So
James Watt, when consulted about the mode of carrying water by pipes
under the Clyde, along the unequal bed of the river, turned his attention
one day to the shell of a lobster presented at table; and from that model
he invented an iron tube, which, when laid down, was found effectually to
answer the purpose. Sir Isambert Brunel took his first lessons in
forming the Thames Tunnel from the tiny shipworm: he saw how the little
creature perforated the wood with its well-armed head, first in one
direction and then in another, till the archway was complete, and then
daubed over the roof and sides with a kind of varnish; and by copying
this work exactly on a large scale, Brunel was at length enabled to
construct his shield and accomplish his great engineering work.
It is the intelligent eye of the careful observer which gives these
apparently trivial phenomena their value. So trifling a matter as the
sight of seaweed floating past his ship, enabled Columbus to quell the
mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to
assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off. There is
nothing so small that it should remain forgotten; and no fact, however
trivial, but may prove useful in some way or other if carefully
interpreted. Who could have imagined that the famous “chalk cliffs of
Albion” had been built up by tiny insects—detected only by the help of
the microscope—of the same order of creatures that have gemmed the sea
with islands of coral! And who that contemplates such extraordinary
results, arising from infinitely minute operations, will venture to
question the power of little things?
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of
success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life.
Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts, made by successive
generations of men, the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully
treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid. Though
many of these facts and observations seemed in the first instance to have
but slight significance, they are all found to have their eventual uses,
and to fit into their proper places. Even many speculations seemingly
remote, turn out to be the basis of results the most obviously practical.
In the case of the conic sections discovered by Apollonius Pergæus,
twenty centuries elapsed before they were made the basis of astronomy—a
science which enables the modern navigator to steer his way through
unknown seas and traces for him in the heavens an unerring path to his
appointed haven. And had not mathematicians toiled for so long, and, to
uninstructed observers, apparently so fruitlessly, over the abstract
relations of lines and surfaces, it is probable that but few of our
mechanical inventions would have seen the light.
When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and
electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, “Of what use is it?”
To which his reply was, “What is the use of a child? It may become a
man!” When Galvani discovered that a frog’s leg twitched when placed in
contact with different metals, it could scarcely have been imagined that
so apparently insignificant a fact could have led to important results.
Yet therein lay the germ of the Electric Telegraph, which binds the
intelligence of continents together, and, probably before many years have
elapsed, will “put a girdle round the globe.” So too, little bits of
stone and fossil, dug out of the earth, intelligently interpreted, have
issued in the science of geology and the practical operations of mining,
in which large capitals are invested and vast numbers of persons
profitably employed.
The gigantic machinery employed in pumping our mines, working our mills
and manufactures, and driving our steam-ships and locomotives, in like
manner depends for its supply of power upon so slight an agency as little
drops of water expanded by heat,—that familiar agency called steam, which
we see issuing from that common tea-kettle spout, but which, when put up
within an ingeniously contrived mechanism, displays a force equal to that
of millions of horses, and contains a power to rebuke the waves and set
even the hurricane at defiance. The same power at work within the bowels
of the earth has been the cause of those volcanoes and earthquakes which
have played so mighty a part in the history of the globe.
It is said that the Marquis of Worcester’s attention was first
accidentally directed to the subject of steam power, by the tight cover
of a vessel containing hot water having been blown off before his eyes,
when confined a prisoner in the Tower. He published the result of his
observations in his ‘Century of Inventions,’ which formed a sort of
text-book for inquirers into the powers of steam for a time, until
Savary, Newcomen, and others, applying it to practical purposes, brought
the steam-engine to the state in which Watt found it when called upon to
repair a model of Newcomen’s engine, which belonged to the University of
Glasgow. This accidental circumstance was an opportunity for Watt, which
he was not slow to improve; and it was the labour of his life to bring
the steam-engine to perfection.
This art of seizing opportunities and turning even accidents to account,
bending them to some purpose is a great secret of success. Dr. Johnson
has defined genius to be “a mind of large general powers accidentally
determined in some particular direction.” Men who are resolved to find a
way for themselves, will always find opportunities enough; and if they do
not lie ready to their hand, they will make them. It is not those who
have enjoyed the advantages of colleges, museums, and public galleries,
that have accomplished the most for science and art; nor have the
greatest mechanics and inventors been trained in mechanics’ institutes.
Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and
the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty. Some
of the very best workmen have had the most indifferent tools to work
with. But it is not tools that make the workman, but the trained skill
and perseverance of the man himself. Indeed it is proverbial that the
bad workman never yet had a good tool. Some one asked Opie by what
wonderful process he mixed his colours. “I mix them with my brains,
sir,” was his reply. It is the same with every workman who would excel.
Ferguson made marvellous things—such as his wooden clock, that accurately
measured the hours—by means of a common penknife, a tool in everybody’s
hand; but then everybody is not a Ferguson. A pan of water and two
thermometers were the tools by which Dr. Black discovered latent heat;
and a prism, a lens, and a sheet of pasteboard enabled Newton to unfold
the composition of light and the origin of colours. An eminent foreign
_savant_ once called upon Dr. Wollaston, and requested to be shown over
his laboratories in which science had been enriched by so many important
discoveries, when the doctor took him into a little study, and, pointing
to an old tea-tray on the table, containing a few watch-glasses, test
papers, a small balance, and a blowpipe, said, “There is all the
laboratory that I have!”
Stothard learnt the art of combining colours by closely studying
butterflies’ wings: he would often say that no one knew what he owed to
these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu
of pencil and canvas. Bewick first practised drawing on the cottage
walls of his native village, which he covered with his sketches in chalk;
and Benjamin West made his first brushes out of the cat’s tail. Ferguson
laid himself down in the fields at night in a blanket, and made a map of
the heavenly bodies by means of a thread with small beads on it stretched
between his eye and the stars. Franklin first robbed the thundercloud of
its lightning by means of a kite made with two cross sticks and a silk
handkerchief. Watt made his first model of the condensing steam-engine
out of an old anatomist’s syringe, used to inject the arteries previous
to dissection. Gifford worked his first problems in mathematics, when a
cobbler’s apprentice, upon small scraps of leather, which he beat smooth
for the purpose; whilst Rittenhouse, the astronomer, first calculated
eclipses on his plough handle.
The most ordinary occasions will furnish a man with opportunities or
suggestions for improvement, if he be but prompt to take advantage of
them. Professor Lee was attracted to the study of Hebrew by finding a
Bible in that tongue in a synagogue, while working as a common carpenter
at the repairs of the benches. He became possessed with a desire to read
the book in the original, and, buying a cheap second-hand copy of a
Hebrew grammar, he set to work and learnt the language for himself. As
Edmund Stone said to the Duke of Argyle, in answer to his grace’s inquiry
how he, a poor gardener’s boy, had contrived to be able to read Newton’s
Principia in Latin, “One needs only to know the twenty-four letters of
the alphabet in order to learn everything else that one wishes.”
Application and perseverance, and the diligent improvement of
opportunities, will do the rest.
Sir Walter Scott found opportunities for self-improvement in every
pursuit, and turned even accidents to account. Thus it was in the
discharge of his functions as a writer’s apprentice that he first visited
the Highlands, and formed those friendships among the surviving heroes of
1745 which served to lay the foundation of a large class of his works.
Later in life, when employed as quartermaster of the Edinburgh Light
Cavalry, he was accidentally disabled by the kick of a horse, and
confined for some time to his house; but Scott was a sworn enemy to
idleness, and he forthwith set his mind to work. In three days he had
composed the first canto of ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ which he
shortly after finished,—his first great original work.
The attention of Dr. Priestley, the discoverer of so many gases, was
accidentally drawn to the subject of chemistry through his living in the
neighbourhood of a brewery. When visiting the place one day, he noted
the peculiar appearances attending the extinction of lighted chips in the
gas floating over the fermented liquor. He was forty years old at the
time, and knew nothing of chemistry. He consulted books to ascertain the
cause, but they told him little, for as yet nothing was known on the
subject. Then he began to experiment, with some rude apparatus of his
own contrivance. The curious results of his first experiments led to
others, which in his hands shortly became the science of pneumatic
chemistry. About the same time, Scheele was obscurely working in the
same direction in a remote Swedish village; and he discovered several new
gases, with no more effective apparatus at his command than a few
apothecaries’ phials and pigs’ bladders.
Sir Humphry Davy, when an apothecary’s apprentice, performed his first
experiments with instruments of the rudest description. He extemporised
the greater part of them himself, out of the motley materials which
chance threw in his way,—the pots and pans of the kitchen, and the phials
and vessels of his master’s surgery. It happened that a French ship was
wrecked off the Land’s End, and the surgeon escaped, bearing with him his
case of instruments, amongst which was an old-fashioned glyster
apparatus; this article he presented to Davy, with whom he had become
acquainted. The apothecary’s apprentice received it with great
exultation, and forthwith employed it as a part of a pneumatic apparatus
which he contrived, afterwards using it to perform the duties of an
air-pump in one of his experiments on the nature and sources of heat.
In like manner Professor Faraday, Sir Humphry Davy’s scientific
successor, made his first experiments in electricity by means of an old
bottle, while he was still a working bookbinder. And it is a curious
fact that Faraday was first attracted to the study of chemistry by
hearing one of Sir Humphry Davy’s lectures on the subject at the Royal
Institution. A gentleman, who was a member, calling one day at the shop
where Faraday was employed in binding books, found him poring over the
article “Electricity” in an Encyclopædia placed in his hands to bind.
The gentleman, having made inquiries, found that the young bookbinder was
curious about such subjects, and gave him an order of admission to the
Royal Institution, where he attended a course of four lectures delivered
by Sir Humphry. He took notes of them, which he showed to the lecturer,
who acknowledged their scientific accuracy, and was surprised when
informed of the humble position of the reporter. Faraday then expressed
his desire to devote himself to the prosecution of chemical studies, from
which Sir Humphry at first endeavoured to dissuade him: but the young man
persisting, he was at length taken into the Royal Institution as an
assistant; and eventually the mantle of the brilliant apothecary’s boy
fell upon the worthy shoulders of the equally brilliant bookbinder’s
apprentice.
The words which Davy entered in his note-book, when about twenty years of
age, working in Dr. Beddoes’ laboratory at Bristol, were eminently
characteristic of him: “I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth to
recommend me; yet if I live, I trust I shall not be of less service to
mankind and my friends, than if I had been born with all these
advantages.” Davy possessed the capability, as Faraday does, of devoting
the whole power of his mind to the practical and experimental
investigation of a subject in all its bearings; and such a mind will
rarely fail, by dint of mere industry and patient thinking, in producing
results of the highest order. Coleridge said of Davy, “There is an
energy and elasticity in his mind, which enables him to seize on and
analyze all questions, pushing them to their legitimate consequences.
Every subject in Davy’s mind has the principle of vitality. Living
thoughts spring up like turf under his feet.” Davy, on his part, said of
Coleridge, whose abilities he greatly admired, “With the most exalted
genius, enlarged views, sensitive heart, and enlightened mind, he will be
the victim of a want of order, precision, and regularity.”
The great Cuvier was a singularly accurate, careful, and industrious
observer. When a boy, he was attracted to the subject of natural history
by the sight of a volume of Buffon which accidentally fell in his way.
He at once proceeded to copy the drawings, and to colour them after the
descriptions given in the text. While still at school, one of his
teachers made him a present of ‘Linnæus’s System of Nature;’ and for more
than ten years this constituted his library of natural history. At
eighteen he was offered the situation of tutor in a family residing near
Fécamp, in Normandy. Living close to the sea-shore, he was brought face
to face with the wonders of marine life. Strolling along the sands one
day, he observed a stranded cuttlefish. He was attracted by the curious
object, took it home to dissect, and thus began the study of the
molluscæ, in the pursuit of which he achieved so distinguished a
reputation. He had no books to refer to, excepting only the great book
of Nature which lay open before him. The study of the novel and
interesting objects which it daily presented to his eyes made a much
deeper impression on his mind than any written or engraved descriptions
could possibly have done. Three years thus passed, during which he
compared the living species of marine animals with the fossil remains
found in the neighbourhood, dissected the specimens of marine life that
came under his notice, and, by careful observation, prepared the way for
a complete reform in the classification of the animal kingdom. About
this time Cuvier became known to the learned Abbé Teissier, who wrote to
Jussieu and other friends in Paris on the subject of the young
naturalist’s inquiries, in terms of such high commendation, that Cuvier
was requested to send some of his papers to the Society of Natural
History; and he was shortly after appointed assistant-superintendent at
the Jardin des Plantes. In the letter written by Teissier to Jussieu,
introducing the young naturalist to his notice, he said, “You remember
that it was I who gave Delambre to the Academy in another branch of
science: this also will be a Delambre.” We need scarcely add that the
prediction of Teissier was more than fulfilled.
It is not accident, then, that helps a man in the world so much as
purpose and persistent industry. To the feeble, the sluggish and
purposeless, the happiest accidents avail nothing,—they pass them by,
seeing no meaning in them. But it is astonishing how much can be
accomplished if we are prompt to seize and improve the opportunities for
action and effort which are constantly presenting themselves. Watt
taught himself chemistry and mechanics while working at his trade of a
mathematical-instrument maker, at the same time that he was learning
German from a Swiss dyer. Stephenson taught himself arithmetic and
mensuration while working as an engineman during the night shifts; and
when he could snatch a few moments in the intervals allowed for meals
during the day, he worked his sums with a bit of chalk upon the sides of
the colliery waggons. Dalton’s industry was the habit of his life. He
began from his boyhood, for he taught a little village-school when he was
only about twelve years old,—keeping the school in winter, and working
upon his father’s farm in summer. He would sometimes urge himself and
companions to study by the stimulus of a bet, though bred a Quaker; and
on one occasion, by his satisfactory solution of a problem, he won as
much as enabled him to buy a winter’s store of candles. He continued his
meteorological observations until a day or two before he died,—having
made and recorded upwards of 200,000 in the course of his life.
With perseverance, the very odds and ends of time may be worked up into
results of the greatest value. An hour in every day withdrawn from
frivolous pursuits would, if profitably employed, enable a person of
ordinary capacity to go far towards mastering a science. It would make
an ignorant man a well-informed one in less than ten years. Time should
not be allowed to pass without yielding fruits, in the form of something
learnt worthy of being known, some good principle cultivated, or some
good habit strengthened. Dr. Mason Good translated Lucretius while
riding in his carriage in the streets of London, going the round of his
patients. Dr. Darwin composed nearly all his works in the same way while
driving about in his “sulky” from house to house in the country,—writing
down his thoughts on little scraps of paper, which he carried about with
him for the purpose. Hale wrote his ‘Contemplations’ while travelling on
circuit. Dr. Burney learnt French and Italian while travelling on
horseback from one musical pupil to another in the course of his
profession. Kirke White learnt Greek while walking to and from a
lawyer’s office; and we personally know a man of eminent position who
learnt Latin and French while going messages as an errand-boy in the
streets of Manchester.
Daguesseau, one of the great Chancellors of France, by carefully working
up his odd bits of time, wrote a bulky and able volume in the successive
intervals of waiting for dinner, and Madame de Genlis composed several of
her charming volumes while waiting for the princess to whom she gave her
daily lessons. Elihu Burritt attributed his first success in
self-improvement, not to genius, which he disclaimed, but simply to the
careful employment of those invaluable fragments of time, called “odd
moments.” While working and earning his living as a blacksmith, he
mastered some eighteen ancient and modern languages, and twenty-two
European dialects.
What a solemn and striking admonition to youth is that inscribed on the
dial at All Souls, Oxford—“Pereunt et imputantur”—the hours perish, and
are laid to our charge. Time is the only little fragment of Eternity
that belongs to man; and, like life, it can never be recalled. “In the
dissipation of worldly treasure,” says Jackson of Exeter, “the frugality
of the future may balance the extravagance of the past; but who can say,
‘I will take from minutes to-morrow to compensate for those I have lost
to-day’?” Melancthon noted down the time lost by him, that he might
thereby reanimate his industry, and not lose an hour. An Italian scholar
put over his door an inscription intimating that whosoever remained there
should join in his labours. “We are afraid,” said some visitors to
Baxter, “that we break in upon your time.” “To be sure you do,” replied
the disturbed and blunt divine. Time was the estate out of which these
great workers, and all other workers, formed that rich treasury of
thoughts and deeds which they have left to their successors.
The mere drudgery undergone by some men in carrying on their undertakings
has been something extraordinary, but the drudgery they regarded as the
price of success. Addison amassed as much as three folios of manuscript
materials before he began his ‘Spectator.’ Newton wrote his ‘Chronology’
fifteen times over before he was satisfied with it; and Gibbon wrote out
his ‘Memoir’ nine times. Hale studied for many years at the rate of
sixteen hours a day, and when wearied with the study of the law, he would
recreate himself with philosophy and the study of the mathematics. Hume
wrote thirteen hours a day while preparing his ‘History of England.’
Montesquieu, speaking of one part of his writings, said to a friend, “You
will read it in a few hours; but I assure you it has cost me so much
labour that it has whitened my hair.”
The practice of writing down thoughts and facts for the purpose of
holding them fast and preventing their escape into the dim region of
forgetfulness, has been much resorted to by thoughtful and studious men.
Lord Bacon left behind him many manuscripts entitled “Sudden thoughts set
down for use.” Erskine made great extracts from Burke; and Eldon copied
Coke upon Littleton twice over with his own hand, so that the book
became, as it were, part of his own mind. The late Dr. Pye Smith, when
apprenticed to his father as a bookbinder, was accustomed to make copious
memoranda of all the books he read, with extracts and criticisms. This
indomitable industry in collecting materials distinguished him through
life, his biographer describing him as “always at work, always in
advance, always accumulating.” These note-books afterwards proved, like
Richter’s “quarries,” the great storehouse from which he drew his
illustrations.
The same practice characterized the eminent John Hunter, who adopted it
for the purpose of supplying the defects of memory; and he was accustomed
thus to illustrate the advantages which one derives from putting one’s
thoughts in writing: “It resembles,” he said, “a tradesman taking stock,
without which he never knows either what he possesses or in what he is
deficient.” John Hunter—whose observation was so keen that Abernethy was
accustomed to speak of him as “the Argus-eyed”—furnished an illustrious
example of the power of patient industry. He received little or no
education till he was about twenty years of age, and it was with
difficulty that he acquired the arts of reading and writing. He worked
for some years as a common carpenter at Glasgow, after which he joined
his brother William, who had settled in London as a lecturer and
anatomical demonstrator. John entered his dissecting-room as an
assistant, but soon shot ahead of his brother, partly by virtue of his
great natural ability, but mainly by reason of his patient application
and indefatigable industry. He was one of the first in this country to
devote himself assiduously to the study of comparative anatomy, and the
objects he dissected and collected took the eminent Professor Owen no
less than ten years to arrange. The collection contains some twenty
thousand specimens, and is the most precious treasure of the kind that
has ever been accumulated by the industry of one man. Hunter used to
spend every morning from sunrise until eight o’clock in his museum; and
throughout the day he carried on his extensive private practice,
performed his laborious duties as surgeon to St. George’s Hospital and
deputy surgeon-general to the army; delivered lectures to students, and
superintended a school of practical anatomy at his own house; finding
leisure, amidst all, for elaborate experiments on the animal economy, and
the composition of various works of great scientific importance. To find
time for this gigantic amount of work, he allowed himself only four hours
of sleep at night, and an hour after dinner. When once asked what method
he had adopted to insure success in his undertakings, he replied, “My
rule is, deliberately to consider, before I commence, whether the thing
be practicable. If it be not practicable, I do not attempt it. If it be
practicable, I can accomplish it if I give sufficient pains to it; and
having begun, I never stop till the thing is done. To this rule I owe
all my success.”
Hunter occupied a great deal of his time in collecting definite facts
respecting matters which, before his day, were regarded as exceedingly
trivial. Thus it was supposed by many of his contemporaries that he was
only wasting his time and thought in studying so carefully as he did the
growth of a deer’s horn. But Hunter was impressed with the conviction
that no accurate knowledge of scientific facts is without its value. By
the study referred to, he learnt how arteries accommodate themselves to
circumstances, and enlarge as occasion requires; and the knowledge thus
acquired emboldened him, in a case of aneurism in a branch artery, to tie
the main trunk where no surgeon before him had dared to tie it, and the
life of his patient was saved. Like many original men, he worked for a
long time as it were underground, digging and laying foundations. He was
a solitary and self-reliant genius, holding on his course without the
solace of sympathy or approbation,—for but few of his contemporaries
perceived the ultimate object of his pursuits. But like all true
workers, he did not fail in securing his best reward—that which depends
less upon others than upon one’s self—the approval of conscience, which
in a right-minded man invariably follows the honest and energetic
performance of duty.
Ambrose Paré, the great French surgeon, was another illustrious instance
of close observation, patient application, and indefatigable
perseverance. He was the son of a barber at Laval, in Maine, where he
was born in 1509. His parents were too poor to send him to school, but
they placed him as foot-boy with the curé of the village, hoping that
under that learned man he might pick up an education for himself. But
the curé kept him so busily employed in grooming his mule and in other
menial offices that the boy found no time for learning. While in his
service, it happened that the celebrated lithotomist, Cotot, came to
Laval to operate on one of the curé’s ecclesiastical brethren. Paré was
present at the operation, and was so much interested by it that he is
said to have from that time formed the determination of devoting himself
to the art of surgery.
Leaving the curé’s household service, Paré apprenticed himself to a
barber-surgeon named Vialot, under whom he learnt to let blood, draw
teeth, and perform the minor operations. After four years’ experience of
this kind, he went to Paris to study at the school of anatomy and
surgery, meanwhile maintaining himself by his trade of a barber. He
afterwards succeeded in obtaining an appointment as assistant at the
Hôtel Dieu, where his conduct was so exemplary, and his progress so
marked, that the chief surgeon, Goupil, entrusted him with the charge of
the patients whom he could not himself attend to. After the usual course
of instruction, Paré was admitted a master barber-surgeon, and shortly
after was appointed to a charge with the French army under Montmorenci in
Piedmont. Paré was not a man to follow in the ordinary ruts of his
profession, but brought the resources of an ardent and original mind to
bear upon his daily work, diligently thinking out for himself the
_rationale_ of diseases and their befitting remedies. Before his time
the wounded suffered much more at the hands of their surgeons than they
did at those of their enemies. To stop bleeding from gunshot wounds, the
barbarous expedient was resorted to of dressing them with boiling oil.
Hæmorrhage was also stopped by searing the wounds with a red-hot iron;
and when amputation was necessary, it was performed with a red-hot knife.
At first Paré treated wounds according to the approved methods; but,
fortunately, on one occasion, running short of boiling oil, he
substituted a mild and emollient application. He was in great fear all
night lest he should have done wrong in adopting this treatment; but was
greatly relieved next morning on finding his patients comparatively
comfortable, while those whose wounds had been treated in the usual way
were writhing in torment. Such was the casual origin of one of Paré’s
greatest improvements in the treatment of gun-shot wounds; and he
proceeded to adopt the emollient treatment in all future cases. Another
still more important improvement was his employment of the ligature in
tying arteries to stop hæmorrhage, instead of the actual cautery. Paré,
however, met with the usual fate of innovators and reformers. His
practice was denounced by his surgical brethren as dangerous,
unprofessional, and empirical; and the older surgeons banded themselves
together to resist its adoption. They reproached him for his want of
education, more especially for his ignorance of Latin and Greek; and they
assailed him with quotations from ancient writers, which he was unable
either to verify or refute. But the best answer to his assailants was
the success of his practice. The wounded soldiers called out everywhere
for Paré, and he was always at their service: he tended them carefully
and affectionately; and he usually took leave of them with the words, “I
have dressed you; may God cure you.”
After three years’ active service as army-surgeon, Paré returned to Paris
with such a reputation that he was at once appointed surgeon in ordinary
to the King. When Metz was besieged by the Spanish army, under Charles
V., the garrison suffered heavy loss, and the number of wounded was very
great. The surgeons were few and incompetent, and probably slew more by
their bad treatment than the Spaniards did by the sword. The Duke of
Guise, who commanded the garrison, wrote to the King imploring him to
send Paré to his help. The courageous surgeon at once set out, and,
after braving many dangers (to use his own words, “d’estre pendu,
estranglé ou mis en pièces”), he succeeded in passing the enemy’s lines,
and entered Metz in safety. The Duke, the generals, and the captains
gave him an affectionate welcome; while the soldiers, when they heard of
his arrival, cried, “We no longer fear dying of our wounds; our friend is
among us.” In the following year Paré was in like manner with the
besieged in the town of Hesdin, which shortly fell before the Duke of
Savoy, and he was taken prisoner. But having succeeded in curing one of
the enemy’s chief officers of a serious wound, he was discharged without
ransom, and returned in safety to Paris.
The rest of his life was occupied in study, in self-improvement, in
piety, and in good deeds. Urged by some of the most learned among his
contemporaries, he placed on record the results of his surgical
experience, in twenty-eight books, which were published by him at
different times. His writings are valuable and remarkable chiefly on
account of the great number of facts and cases contained in them, and the
care with which he avoids giving any directions resting merely upon
theory unsupported by observation. Paré continued, though a Protestant,
to hold the office of surgeon in ordinary to the King; and during the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew he owed his life to the personal friendship
of Charles IX., whom he had on one occasion saved from the dangerous
effects of a wound inflicted by a clumsy surgeon in performing the
operation of venesection. Brantôme, in his ‘Mémoires,’ thus speaks of
the King’s rescue of Paré on the night of Saint Bartholomew—“He sent to
fetch him, and to remain during the night in his chamber and
wardrobe-room, commanding him not to stir, and saying that it was not
reasonable that a man who had preserved the lives of so many people
should himself be massacred.” Thus Paré escaped the horrors of that
fearful night, which he survived for many years, and was permitted to die
in peace, full of age and honours.
Harvey was as indefatigable a labourer as any we have named. He spent
not less than eight long years of investigation and research before he
published his views of the circulation of the blood. He repeated and
verified his experiments again and again, probably anticipating the
opposition he would have to encounter from the profession on making known
his discovery. The tract in which he at length announced his views, was
a most modest one,—but simple, perspicuous, and conclusive. It was
nevertheless received with ridicule, as the utterance of a crack-brained
impostor. For some time, he did not make a single convert, and gained
nothing but contumely and abuse. He had called in question the revered
authority of the ancients; and it was even averred that his views were
calculated to subvert the authority of the Scriptures and undermine the
very foundations of morality and religion. His little practice fell
away, and he was left almost without a friend. This lasted for some
years, until the great truth, held fast by Harvey amidst all his
adversity, and which had dropped into many thoughtful minds, gradually
ripened by further observation, and after a period of about twenty-five
years, it became generally recognised as an established scientific truth.
The difficulties encountered by Dr. Jenner in promulgating and
establishing his discovery of vaccination as a preventive of small-pox,
were even greater than those of Harvey. Many, before him, had witnessed
the cow-pox, and had heard of the report current among the milkmaids in
Gloucestershire, that whoever had taken that disease was secure against
small-pox. It was a trifling, vulgar rumour, supposed to have no
significance whatever; and no one had thought it worthy of investigation,
until it was accidentally brought under the notice of Jenner. He was a
youth, pursuing his studies at Sodbury, when his attention was arrested
by the casual observation made by a country girl who came to his master’s
shop for advice. The small-pox was mentioned, when the girl said, “I
can’t take that disease, for I have had cow-pox.” The observation
immediately riveted Jenner’s attention, and he forthwith set about
inquiring and making observations on the subject. His professional
friends, to whom he mentioned his views as to the prophylactic virtues of
cow-pox, laughed at him, and even threatened to expel him from their
society, if he persisted in harassing them with the subject. In London
he was so fortunate as to study under John Hunter, to whom he
communicated his views. The advice of the great anatomist was thoroughly
characteristic: “Don’t think, but _try_; be patient, be accurate.”
Jenner’s courage was supported by the advice, which conveyed to him the
true art of philosophical investigation. He went back to the country to
practise his profession and make observations and experiments, which he
continued to pursue for a period of twenty years. His faith in his
discovery was so implicit that he vaccinated his own son on three several
occasions. At length he published his views in a quarto of about seventy
pages, in which he gave the details of twenty-three cases of successful
vaccination of individuals, to whom it was found afterwards impossible to
communicate the small-pox either by contagion or inoculation. It was in
1798 that this treatise was published; though he had been working out his
ideas since the year 1775, when they had begun to assume a definite form.
How was the discovery received? First with indifference, then with
active hostility. Jenner proceeded to London to exhibit to the
profession the process of vaccination and its results; but not a single
medical man could be induced to make trial of it, and after fruitlessly
waiting for nearly three months, he returned to his native village. He
was even caricatured and abused for his attempt to “bestialize” his
species by the introduction into their systems of diseased matter from
the cow’s udder. Vaccination was denounced from the pulpit as
“diabolical.” It was averred that vaccinated children became “ox-faced,”
that abscesses broke out to “indicate sprouting horns,” and that the
countenance was gradually “transmuted into the visage of a cow, the voice
into the bellowing of bulls.” Vaccination, however, was a truth, and
notwithstanding the violence of the opposition, belief in it spread
slowly. In one village, where a gentleman tried to introduce the
practice, the first persons who permitted themselves to be vaccinated
were absolutely pelted and driven into their houses if they appeared out
of doors. Two ladies of title—Lady Ducie and the Countess of Berkeley—to
their honour be it remembered—had the courage to vaccinate their
children; and the prejudices of the day were at once broken through. The
medical profession gradually came round, and there were several who even
sought to rob Dr. Jenner of the merit of the discovery, when its
importance came to be recognised. Jenner’s cause at last triumphed, and
he was publicly honoured and rewarded. In his prosperity he was as
modest as he had been in his obscurity. He was invited to settle in
London, and told that he might command a practice of 10,000_l._ a year.
But his answer was, “No! In the morning of my days I have sought the
sequestered and lowly paths of life—the valley, and not the mountain,—and
now, in the evening of my days, it is not meet for me to hold myself up
as an object for fortune and for fame.” During Jenner’s own life-time
the practice of vaccination became adopted all over the civilized world;
and when he died, his title as a Benefactor of his kind was recognised
far and wide. Cuvier has said, “If vaccine were the only discovery of
the epoch, it would serve to render it illustrious for ever; yet it
knocked twenty times in vain at the doors of the Academies.”
Not less patient, resolute, and persevering was Sir Charles Bell in the
prosecution of his discoveries relating to the nervous system. Previous
to his time, the most confused notions prevailed as to the functions of
the nerves, and this branch of study was little more advanced than it had
been in the times of Democritus and Anaxagoras three thousand years
before. Sir Charles Bell, in the valuable series of papers the
publication of which was commenced in 1821, took an entirely original
view of the subject, based upon a long series of careful, accurate, and
oft-repeated experiments. Elaborately tracing the development of the
nervous system up from the lowest order of animated being, to man—the
lord of the animal kingdom,—he displayed it, to use his own words, “as
plainly as if it were written in our mother-tongue.” His discovery
consisted in the fact, that the spinal nerves are double in their
function, and arise by double roots from the spinal marrow,—volition
being conveyed by that part of the nerves springing from the one root,
and sensation by the other. The subject occupied the mind of Sir Charles
Bell for a period of forty years, when, in 1840, he laid his last paper
before the Royal Society. As in the cases of Harvey and Jenner, when he
had lived down the ridicule and opposition with which his views were
first received, and their truth came to be recognised, numerous claims
for priority in making the discovery were set up at home and abroad.
Like them, too, he lost practice by the publication of his papers; and he
left it on record that, after every step in his discovery, he was obliged
to work harder than ever to preserve his reputation as a practitioner.
The great merits of Sir Charles Bell were, however, at length fully
recognised; and Cuvier himself, when on his death-bed, finding his face
distorted and drawn to one side, pointed out the symptom to his
attendants as a proof of the correctness of Sir Charles Bell’s theory.
An equally devoted pursuer of the same branch of science was the late Dr.
Marshall Hall, whose name posterity will rank with those of Harvey,
Hunter, Jenner, and Bell. During the whole course of his long and useful
life he was a most careful and minute observer; and no fact, however
apparently insignificant, escaped his attention. His important discovery
of the diastaltic nervous system, by which his name will long be known
amongst scientific men, originated in an exceedingly simple circumstance.
When investigating the pneumonic circulation in the Triton, the
decapitated object lay upon the table; and on separating the tail and
accidentally pricking the external integument, he observed that it moved
with energy, and became contorted into various forms. He had not touched
a muscle or a muscular nerve; what then was the nature of these
movements? The same phenomena had probably been often observed before,
but Dr. Hall was the first to apply himself perseveringly to the
investigation of their causes; and he exclaimed on the occasion, “I will
never rest satisfied until I have found all this out, and made it clear.”
His attention to the subject was almost incessant; and it is estimated
that in the course of his life he devoted not less than 25,000 hours to
its experimental and chemical investigation. He was at the same time
carrying on an extensive private practice, and officiating as lecturer at
St. Thomas’s Hospital and other Medical Schools. It will scarcely be
credited that the paper in which he embodied his discovery was rejected
by the Royal Society, and was only accepted after the lapse of seventeen
years, when the truth of his views had become acknowledged by scientific
men both at home and abroad.
The life of Sir William Herschel affords another remarkable illustration
of the force of perseverance in another branch of science. His father
was a poor German musician, who brought up his four sons to the same
calling. William came over to England to seek his fortune, and he joined
the band of the Durham Militia, in which he played the oboe. The
regiment was lying at Doncaster, where Dr. Miller first became acquainted
with Herschel, having heard him perform a solo on the violin in a
surprising manner. The Doctor entered into conversation with the youth,
and was so pleased with him, that he urged him to leave the militia and
take up his residence at his house for a time. Herschel did so, and
while at Doncaster was principally occupied in violin-playing at
concerts, availing himself of the advantages of Dr. Miller’s library to
study at his leisure hours. A new organ having been built for the parish
church of Halifax, an organist was advertised for, on which Herschel
applied for the office, and was selected. Leading the wandering life of
an artist, he was next attracted to Bath, where he played in the
Pump-room band, and also officiated as organist in the Octagon chapel.
Some recent discoveries in astronomy having arrested his mind, and
awakened in him a powerful spirit of curiosity, he sought and obtained
from a friend the loan of a two-foot Gregorian telescope. So fascinated
was the poor musician by the science, that he even thought of purchasing
a telescope, but the price asked by the London optician was so alarming,
that he determined to make one. Those who know what a reflecting
telescope is, and the skill which is required to prepare the concave
metallic speculum which forms the most important part of the apparatus,
will be able to form some idea of the difficulty of this undertaking.
Nevertheless, Herschel succeeded, after long and painful labour, in
completing a five-foot reflector, with which he had the gratification of
observing the ring and satellites of Saturn. Not satisfied with his
triumph, he proceeded to make other instruments in succession, of seven,
ten, and even twenty feet. In constructing the seven-foot reflector, he
finished no fewer than two hundred specula before he produced one that
would bear any power that was applied to it,—a striking instance of the
persevering laboriousness of the man. While gauging the heavens with his
instruments, he continued patiently to earn his bread by piping to the
fashionable frequenters of the Pump-room. So eager was he in his
astronomical observations, that he would steal away from the room during
an interval of the performance, give a little turn at his telescope, and
contentedly return to his oboe. Thus working away, Herschel discovered
the Georgium Sidus, the orbit and rate of motion of which he carefully
calculated, and sent the result to the Royal Society; when the humble
oboe player found himself at once elevated from obscurity to fame. He
was shortly after appointed Astronomer Royal, and by the kindness of
George III. was placed in a position of honourable competency for life.
He bore his honours with the same meekness and humility which had
distinguished him in the days of his obscurity. So gentle and patient,
and withal so distinguished and successful a follower of science under
difficulties, perhaps cannot be found in the entire history of biography.
The career of William Smith, the father of English geology, though
perhaps less known, is not less interesting and instructive as an example
of patient and laborious effort, and the diligent cultivation of
opportunities. He was born in 1769, the son of a yeoman farmer at
Churchill, in Oxfordshire. His father dying when he was but a child, he
received a very sparing education at the village school, and even that
was to a considerable extent interfered with by his wandering and
somewhat idle habits as a boy. His mother having married a second time,
he was taken in charge by an uncle, also a farmer, by whom he was brought
up. Though the uncle was by no means pleased with the boy’s love of
wandering about, collecting “poundstones,” “pundips,” and other stony
curiosities which lay scattered about the adjoining land, he yet enabled
him to purchase a few of the necessary books wherewith to instruct
himself in the rudiments of geometry and surveying; for the boy was
already destined for the business of a land-surveyor. One of his marked
characteristics, even as a youth, was the accuracy and keenness of his
observation; and what he once clearly saw he never forgot. He began to
draw, attempted to colour, and practised the arts of mensuration and
surveying, all without regular instruction; and by his efforts in
self-culture, he shortly became so proficient, that he was taken on as
assistant to a local surveyor of ability in the neighbourhood. In
carrying on his business he was constantly under the necessity of
traversing Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties. One of the first
things he seriously pondered over, was the position of the various soils
and strata that came under his notice on the lands which he surveyed or
travelled over; more especially the position of the red earth in regard
to the lias and superincumbent rocks. The surveys of numerous collieries
which he was called upon to make, gave him further experience; and
already, when only twenty-three years of age, he contemplated making a
model of the strata of the earth.
While engaged in levelling for a proposed canal in Gloucestershire, the
idea of a general law occurred to him relating to the strata of that
district. He conceived that the strata lying above the coal were not
laid horizontally, but inclined, and in one direction, towards the east;
resembling, on a large scale, “the ordinary appearance of superposed
slices of bread and butter.” The correctness of this theory he shortly
after confirmed by observations of the strata in two parallel valleys,
the “red ground,” “lias,” and “freestone” or “oolite,” being found to
come down in an eastern direction, and to sink below the level, yielding
place to the next in succession. He was shortly enabled to verify the
truth of his views on a larger scale, having been appointed to examine
personally into the management of canals in England and Wales. During
his journeys, which extended from Bath to Newcastle-on-Tyne, returning by
Shropshire and Wales, his keen eyes were never idle for a moment. He
rapidly noted the aspect and structure of the country through which he
passed with his companions, treasuring up his observations for future
use. His geologic vision was so acute, that though the road along which
he passed from York to Newcastle in the post chaise was from five to
fifteen miles distant from the hills of chalk and oolite on the east, he
was satisfied as to their nature, by their contours and relative
position, and their ranges on the surface in relation to the lias and
“red ground” occasionally seen on the road.
The general results of his observation seem to have been these. He noted
that the rocky masses of country in the western parts of England
generally inclined to the east and south-east; that the red sandstones
and marls above the coal measures passed beneath the lias, clay, and
limestone, that these again passed beneath the sands, yellow limestones
and clays, forming the table-land of the Cotswold Hills, while these in
turn passed beneath the great chalk deposits occupying the eastern parts
of England. He further observed, that each layer of clay, sand, and
limestone held its own peculiar classes of fossils; and pondering much on
these things, he at length came to the then unheard-of conclusion, that
each distinct deposit of marine animals, in these several strata,
indicated a distinct sea-bottom, and that each layer of clay, sand,
chalk, and stone, marked a distinct epoch of time in the history of the
earth.
This idea took firm possession of his mind, and he could talk and think
of nothing else. At canal boards, at sheep-shearings, at county
meetings, and at agricultural associations, ‘Strata Smith,’ as he came to
be called, was always running over with the subject that possessed him.
He had indeed made a great discovery, though he was as yet a man utterly
unknown in the scientific world. He proceeded to project a map of the
stratification of England; but was for some time deterred from proceeding
with it, being fully occupied in carrying out the works of the
Somersetshire coal canal, which engaged him for a period of about six
years. He continued, nevertheless, to be unremitting in his observation
of facts; and he became so expert in apprehending the internal structure
of a district and detecting the lie of the strata from its external
configuration, that he was often consulted respecting the drainage of
extensive tracts of land, in which, guided by his geological knowledge,
he proved remarkably successful, and acquired an extensive reputation.
One day, when looking over the cabinet collection of fossils belonging to
the Rev. Samuel Richardson, at Bath, Smith astonished his friend by
suddenly disarranging his classification, and re-arranging the fossils in
their stratigraphical order, saying—“These came from the blue lias, these
from the over-lying sand and freestone, these from the fuller’s earth,
and these from the Bath building stone.” A new light flashed upon Mr.
Richardson’s mind, and he shortly became a convert to and believer in
William Smith’s doctrine. The geologists of the day were not, however,
so easily convinced; and it was scarcely to be tolerated that an unknown
land-surveyor should pretend to teach them the science of geology. But
William Smith had an eye and mind to penetrate deep beneath the skin of
the earth; he saw its very fibre and skeleton, and, as it were, divined
its organization. His knowledge of the strata in the neighbourhood of
Bath was so accurate, that one evening, when dining at the house of the
Rev. Joseph Townsend, he dictated to Mr. Richardson the different strata
according to their order of succession in descending order, twenty-three
in number, commencing with the chalk and descending in continuous series
down to the coal, below which the strata were not then sufficiently
determined. To this was added a list of the more remarkable fossils
which had been gathered in the several layers of rock. This was printed
and extensively circulated in 1801.
He next determined to trace out the strata through districts as remote
from Bath as his means would enable him to reach. For years he journeyed
to and fro, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, riding on the tops
of stage coaches, often making up by night-travelling the time he had
lost by day, so as not to fail in his ordinary business engagements.
When he was professionally called away to any distance from home—as, for
instance, when travelling from Bath to Holkham, in Norfolk, to direct the
irrigation and drainage of Mr. Coke’s land in that county—he rode on
horseback, making frequent detours from the road to note the geological
features of the country which he traversed.
For several years he was thus engaged in his journeys to distant quarters
in England and Ireland, to the extent of upwards of ten thousand miles
yearly; and it was amidst this incessant and laborious travelling, that
he contrived to commit to paper his fast-growing generalizations on what
he rightly regarded as a new science. No observation, howsoever trivial
it might appear, was neglected, and no opportunity of collecting fresh
facts was overlooked. Whenever he could, he possessed himself of records
of borings, natural and artificial sections, drew them to a constant
scale of eight yards to the inch, and coloured them up. Of his keenness
of observation take the following illustration. When making one of his
geological excursions about the country near Woburn, as he was drawing
near to the foot of the Dunstable chalk hills, he observed to his
companion, “If there be any broken ground about the foot of these hills,
we may find _shark’s teeth_;” and they had not proceeded far, before they
picked up six from the white bank of a new fence-ditch. As he afterwards
said of himself, “The habit of observation crept on me, gained a
settlement in my mind, became a constant associate of my life, and
started up in activity at the first thought of a journey; so that I
generally went off well prepared with maps, and sometimes with
contemplations on its objects, or on those on the road, reduced to
writing before it commenced. My mind was, therefore, like the canvas of
a painter, well prepared for the first and best impressions.”
Notwithstanding his courageous and indefatigable industry, many
circumstances contributed to prevent the promised publication of William
Smith’s ‘Map of the Strata of England and Wales,’ and it was not until
1814 that he was enabled, by the assistance of some friends, to give to
the world the fruits of his twenty years’ incessant labour. To prosecute
his inquiries, and collect the extensive series of facts and observations
requisite for his purpose, he had to expend the whole of the profits of
his professional labours during that period; and he even sold off his
small property to provide the means of visiting remoter parts of the
island. Meanwhile he had entered on a quarrying speculation near Bath,
which proved unsuccessful, and he was under the necessity of selling his
geological collection (which was purchased by the British Museum), his
furniture and library, reserving only his papers, maps, and sections,
which were useless save to himself. He bore his losses and misfortunes
with exemplary fortitude; and amidst all, he went on working with
cheerful courage and untiring patience. He died at Northampton, in
August, 1839, while on his way to attend the meeting of the British
Association at Birmingham.
It is difficult to speak in terms of too high praise of the first
geological map of England, which we owe to the industry of this
courageous man of science. An accomplished writer says of it, “It was a
work so masterly in conception and so correct in general outline, that in
principle it served as a basis not only for the production of later maps
of the British Islands, but for geological maps of all other parts of the
world, wherever they have been undertaken. In the apartments of the
Geological Society Smith’s map may yet be seen—a great historical
document, old and worn, calling for renewal of its faded tints. Let any
one conversant with the subject compare it with later works on a similar
scale, and he will find that in all essential features it will not suffer
by the comparison—the intricate anatomy of the Silurian rocks of Wales
and the north of England by Murchison and Sedgwick being the chief
additions made to his great generalizations.” {149} The genius of the
Oxfordshire surveyor did not fail to be duly recognised and honoured by
men of science during his lifetime. In 1831 the Geological Society of
London awarded to him the Wollaston medal, “in consideration of his being
a great original discoverer in English geology, and especially for his
being the first in this country to discover and to teach the
identification of strata, and to determine their succession by means of
their imbedded fossils.” William Smith, in his simple, earnest way,
gained for himself a name as lasting as the science he loved so well. To
use the words of the writer above quoted, “Till the manner as well as the
fact of the first appearance of successive forms of life shall be solved,
it is not easy to surmise how any discovery can be made in geology equal
in value to that which we owe to the genius of William Smith.”
Hugh Miller was a man of like observant faculties, who studied literature
as well as science with zeal and success. The book in which he has told
the story of his life, (‘My Schools and Schoolmasters’), is extremely
interesting, and calculated to be eminently useful. It is the history of
the formation of a truly noble character in the humblest condition of
life; and inculcates most powerfully the lessons of self-help,
self-respect, and self-dependence. While Hugh was but a child, his
father, who was a sailor, was drowned at sea, and he was brought up by
his widowed mother. He had a school training after a sort, but his best
teachers were the boys with whom he played, the men amongst whom he
worked, the friends and relatives with whom he lived. He read much and
miscellaneously, and picked up odd sorts of knowledge from many
quarters,—from workmen, carpenters, fishermen and sailors, and above all,
from the old boulders strewed along the shores of the Cromarty Frith.
With a big hammer which had belonged to his great-grandfather, an old
buccaneer, the boy went about chipping the stones, and accumulating
specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet, and such like. Sometimes he had a
day in the woods, and there, too, the boy’s attention was excited by the
peculiar geological curiosities which came in his way. While searching
among the rocks on the beach, he was sometimes asked, in irony, by the
farm servants who came to load their carts with sea-weed, whether he “was
gettin’ siller in the stanes,” but was so unlucky as never to be able to
answer in the affirmative. When of a suitable age he was apprenticed to
the trade of his choice—that of a working stonemason; and he began his
labouring career in a quarry looking out upon the Cromarty Frith. This
quarry proved one of his best schools. The remarkable geological
formations which it displayed awakened his curiosity. The bar of
deep-red stone beneath, and the bar of pale-red clay above, were noted by
the young quarryman, who even in such unpromising subjects found matter
for observation and reflection. Where other men saw nothing, he detected
analogies, differences, and peculiarities, which set him a-thinking. He
simply kept his eyes and his mind open; was sober, diligent, and
persevering; and this was the secret of his intellectual growth.
His curiosity was excited and kept alive by the curious organic remains,
principally of old and extinct species of fishes, ferns, and ammonites,
which were revealed along the coast by the washings of the waves, or were
exposed by the stroke of his mason’s hammer. He never lost sight of the
subject; but went on accumulating observations and comparing formations,
until at length, many years afterwards, when no longer a working mason,
he gave to the world his highly interesting work on the Old Red
Sandstone, which at once established his reputation as a scientific
geologist. But this work was the fruit of long years of patient
observation and research. As he modestly states in his autobiography,
“the only merit to which I lay claim in the case is that of patient
research—a merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpass me; and this
humble faculty of patience, when rightly developed, may lead to more
extraordinary developments of idea than even genius itself.”
The late John Brown, the eminent English geologist, was, like Miller, a
stonemason in his early life, serving an apprenticeship to the trade at
Colchester, and afterwards working as a journeyman mason at Norwich. He
began business as a builder on his own account at Colchester, where by
frugality and industry he secured a competency. It was while working at
his trade that his attention was first drawn to the study of fossils and
shells; and he proceeded to make a collection of them, which afterwards
grew into one of the finest in England. His researches along the coasts
of Essex, Kent, and Sussex brought to light some magnificent remains of
the elephant and rhinoceros, the most valuable of which were presented by
him to the British Museum. During the last few years of his life he
devoted considerable attention to the study of the Foraminifera in chalk,
respecting which he made several interesting discoveries. His life was
useful, happy, and honoured; and he died at Stanway, in Essex, in
November 1859, at the ripe age of eighty years.
Not long ago, Sir Roderick Murchison discovered at Thurso, in the far
north of Scotland, a profound geologist, in the person of a baker there,
named Robert Dick. When Sir Roderick called upon him at the bakehouse in
which he baked and earned his bread, Robert Dick delineated to him, by
means of flour upon the board, the geographical features and geological
phenomena of his native county, pointing out the imperfections in the
existing maps, which he had ascertained by travelling over the country in
his leisure hours. On further inquiry, Sir Roderick ascertained that the
humble individual before him was not only a capital baker and geologist,
but a first-rate botanist. “I found,” said the President of the
Geographical Society, “to my great humiliation that the baker knew
infinitely more of botanical science, ay, ten times more, than I did; and
that there were only some twenty or thirty specimens of flowers which he
had not collected. Some he had obtained as presents, some he had
purchased, but the greater portion had been accumulated by his industry,
in his native county of Caithness; and the specimens were all arranged in
the most beautiful order, with their scientific names affixed.”
Sir Roderick Murchison himself is an illustrious follower of these and
kindred branches of science. A writer in the ‘Quarterly Review’ cites
him as a “singular instance of a man who, having passed the early part of
his life as a soldier, never having had the advantage, or disadvantage as
the case might have been, of a scientific training, instead of remaining
a fox-hunting country gentleman, has succeeded by his own native vigour
and sagacity, untiring industry and zeal, in making for himself a
scientific reputation that is as wide as it is likely to be lasting. He
took first of all an unexplored and difficult district at home, and, by
the labour of many years, examined its rock-formations, classed them in
natural groups, assigned to each its characteristic assemblage of
fossils, and was the first to decipher two great chapters in the world’s
geological history, which must always henceforth carry his name on their
title-page. Not only so, but he applied the knowledge thus acquired to
the dissection of large districts, both at home and abroad, so as to
become the geological discoverer of great countries which had formerly
been ‘terræ incognitæ.’” But Sir Roderick Murchison is not merely a
geologist. His indefatigable labours in many branches of knowledge have
contributed to render him among the most accomplished and complete of
scientific men.