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
Refreshed by this holiday, he now felt anxious to complete as far as
possible his Elasmobranch work, and very soon after his return home, in
fact in March, made his way again to Naples, where he remained till the hot
weather set in in May. On his return to Cambridge, he still continued
working on the Elasmobranchii, receiving material partly from Naples,
partly from the Brighton Aquarium, the then director of which, Mr Henry
Lee, spared no pains to provide him both with embryo and adult fishes.
While at Naples, he communicated to the Philosophical Society at Cambridge
a remarkable paper on "The Early Stages of Vertebrates," which was
published in full in the _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_,
July, 1875; he also sent me a paper on "The Development of the Spinal
Nerves", which I communicated to the Royal Society, and which was
subsequently published in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of 1876. He
further wrote in the course of the summer and published in the _Journal of
Anatomy and Physiology_ in October, 1875, a detailed account of his
"Observations and Views on the Development of the Urogenital Organs."
Some time in August of the same year he started in company with Mr Arthur
Evans and Mr J. F. Bullar for a second trip to Finland, the travellers on
this occasion making their way into regions very seldom visited, and having
to subsist largely on the preserved provisions which they carried with
them, and on the produce of their rods and guns. From a rough diary which
Balfour kept during this trip it would appear that while enjoying heartily
the fun of the rough travelling, he occupied himself continually with
observations on the geology and physical phenomena of the country, as well
as on the manners, antiquities, and even language of the people. It was one
of his characteristic traits, a mark of the truly scientific bent of his
mind, of his having, as Dohrn soon after Balfour's first arrival at Naples
said, 'a real scientific head,' that every thing around him wherever he
was, incited him to careful exact observation, and stimulated him to
thought.
In the early part of the Long Vacation of the same year he had made his
first essay in lecturing, having given a short course on Embryology in a
room at the New Museums, which I then occupied as a laboratory. Though he
afterwards learnt to lecture with great clearness he was not by nature a
fluent speaker, and on this occasion he was exceedingly nervous. But those
who listened to him soon forgot these small defects as they began to
perceive the knowledge and power which lay in their new teacher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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