Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/323

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE PARALLEL ROADS OF GLEN ROY.
309

shown itself. Should it do so, however, we may, perhaps, make arrangements for elementary instruction in those subjects, under the more immediate superintendence of Dr. Brooks, our associate in biology, upon whose shoulders I must throw most of the burden of that side of the work. We shall, at any rate, collect material and make other preparations for such a course next year. After Christmas Dr. Brooks will give a course of lectures on "Morphological Theories."

For the present, too, we shall have in the laboratory several well-trained zoölogists and morphologists; some engaged in prosecuting advanced studies, others in research. I fancy all of them are (as they ought to be) pretty well qualified to take care of themselves; but Dr. Brooks and myself will do our best to give them such assistance as they may need, and to make arrangements by which they can be supplied with such material as they require.

In conclusion, let me say a word to those of you here present who are to be the first workers with me in this laboratory. It behooves you as well as me to recognize what a heavy responsibility lies upon us. Upon the work that we do and the spirit in which we do it, upon the character we give our laboratory at its start, much of its future success or failure depends. If we all work honestly and thoroughly, it will win esteem and reputation; if we are careless and half-hearted, it will become of low repute. Let us, then, each work loyally, earnestly, truthfully, so that when the time comes, as it will come sooner or later, in one way or another, to each of us, to depart hence, we may carry with us a good conscience, and be able to say that in our time no slipshod piece of work ever left the laboratory; that no error we knew of was persisted in; that our only desire was to know the truth. Let us leave a record which, if it perchance contain the history of no great feat in the memory of which our successors will glory, will at least contain not one jot or one tittle of which they can be ashamed.

THE PARALLEL ROADS OF GLEN ROY.

FROM a lecture recently delivered by Prof. Tyndall before the Royal Institution, we gather the following facts in regard to that natural wonder in Scotland, which for so long remained a puzzle to all investigators. There is an unusual interest centred around its history, from the time when the country-people explained it by their crude and half-mythical theories, to the time when it became a labor of love for the untiring efforts and acute observations of scientists.

The earliest published allusion to these roads was made in a work brought before the public a century ago, but no systematic description of them appeared before 1817. They are found in the district of