James David Forbes, late Principal of the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, was born in Edinburgh on the 28th of April, 1809. His mother died shortly after his birth, of consumption ; and the boy's delicacy was such, that his father, Mr. William Forbes, of Pitsligo, thought it well to discourage rather than to stimulate his love for knowledge, mathematical studies being especially forbidden.
But nature was stronger than paternal solicitude ; and natural genius made such good use of all available opportunities for study that in 1833, at the early age of 24, Mr. Forbes was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, an office the duties of which he performed with great distinction for twenty- six years, though in the latter part of that period impeded by failing health. In 1859 Professor Forbes was appointed Principal of the United Colleges of St. Salvador and St. Leonard in the University of St. Andrews, and held these offices until his lamented death on the 31st of December, 1868.
Principal Forbes attained high distinction as an original investigator in several branches of physics, while, to the general public, he was widely known and deservedly famed as the writer who had brought the grand and profoundly interesting aspects of the Alpine world before their minds with a power and distinctness which no one since the days of Saussure had approached, when the 'Travels in the Alps ' were published.
My friend and colleague Mr. Geikie, F.R.S., has given so admirable an account of Principal Forbes's relation to geological science, that I venture to reproduce what he has said on this occasion : —
Principal Forbes was born in Edinburgh just twelve years after the death of the great Hutton, only seven years after the publication of the ' Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory ;' and he was already a boy of ten when Playfair died. Many of his friends had been personally acquainted with these philosophers ; and the memory of the fierce Plutonian and Neptunian war was still fresh in their minds when he began to give himself to scientific pursuits. These early influences are traceable all through his life. He was profoundly impressed with the originality and truth of the views propounded by Hutton and illustrated by Playfair. He speaks with enthusiasm of the " precious lessons " which one of his friends had drawn from the lips of Playfair and of Hall. I shall never cease to remember with gratitude that it was he who introduced me when a boy to the writings of these masters. He used to speak of Playfair's 'Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory ' as one of the best books ever written upon the first principles of geological science.
Principal Forbes studied geology under Jameson, from whom he acquired a love for the mineralogical side of the science, and retained it to the last. Moreover his own predominant tendency towards physics tinged even his geological studies. Hence we find him rising, on the one hand, from a contemplation of the phenomena of glaciers to a philosophical investigation of the laws under which these phenomena occur — on the other, from the mere observation and collection of rocks and minerals to the natural philosophy of the operations by which they were produced.
