The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) : $b Separate memoirsBalfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Science
The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) : $b Separate memoirs
Balfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Embryology; Zoology
In the September of that year the triennial fellowship for Natural Science
was to be awarded at Trinity College, and Balfour naturally was a
candidate. The election was, according to the regulations, to be determined
partly by the result of an examination in various branches of science, and
partly by such evidence of ability and promise as might be afforded by
original work, published or in manuscript. He spent the remainder of the
autumn in preparation for this examination. But when the examination was
concluded it was found that in his written answers he had not been very
successful; he had not even acquitted himself so well as in the Tripos of
the year before, and had the election been determined by the results of the
examination alone, the examiners would have been led to choose the
gentleman who was Balfour's only competitor. The original work however
which Balfour sent in, including a preliminary account of the discoveries
made at Naples, was obviously of so high a merit and was spoken of in such
enthusiastic terms by the External Referee Prof. Huxley, that the examiners
did not hesitate for a moment to neglect altogether the formal written
answers (and indeed the papers of questions were only introduced as a
safeguard, or as a resource in case evidence of original power should be
wanted) and unanimously recommended him for election. Accordingly he was
elected Fellow in the early days of October.
Almost immediately after, the little book on Embryology appeared, on which
he and I had been at work, he doing his share even while his hands and mind
were full of the Elasmobranch inquiry. The title-page was kept back some
little time in order that his name might appear on it with the addition of
Fellow of Trinity, a title of which he was then, and indeed always
continued to be, proud. He also published in the October number of the
_Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_ a preliminary account of his
Elasmobranch researches.
He and his friends thought that after these almost incessant labours, and
the excitement necessarily contingent upon the fellowship election, he
needed rest and change. Accordingly on the 17th of October he started with
his friend Marlborough Pryor on a voyage to the west coast of South
America. They travelled thither by the Isthmus of Panama, visited Peru and
Chili, and returned home along the usual route by the Horn; reaching
England some time in Feb. 1875.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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