Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/320

312 FORBES time discontinued, its duties devolved on the lord advocate, who was thus temporarily at the head of the government. The office of lord president of the court of session was conferred on him in 1737. He still paid regard to politi- cal affairs, and proposed that government should raise several regiments of highlanders, to be officered by the chiefs of the disaffected clans, and employed in the threatened Spanish war. Several leading men, including Walpole, ap- proved the plan, but nothing was done. When the second rebellion broke out, in 1745, he ex- erted himself strenuously to prevent its spread, withheld several highland chiefs from joining the pretender, and was more efficient than any other man in restraining the rebels. After the battle of Culloden, which took its name from Forbes's family estate, he sought to moderate the ferocity of the victors, but his remonstrances were treated with the utmost scorn and con- tempt. He was insulted by Cumberland, who called him " that old woman who talked to me about humanity." The government used him with baseness. He had advanced and borrowed large sums of money in aid of it, but none of his advances were returned, and the borrowed money was repaid from his estate, after his death, by his son. Forbes saw the changes that were forced upon Scotland after the re- bellion with regret, and his death, which hap- rned 20 months after the battle of Culloden, supposed to have been caused tyy the humil- iation of himself and his country. He was a Hebrew scholar, and wrote " Thoughts on Re- ligion, Natural and Revealed," " Reflections on the Sources of Incredulity in regard to Reli- gion," and "A Letter to a Bishop concerning some important Discoveries in Philosophy and Religion." His correspondence in relation to Scottish affairs was published under the title of "The Culloden Papers" (London, 1815); and his biography has been written by John Hill Burton (London, 1847). FORBES, Edward, an English naturalist, born in Douglas, isle of Man, early in 1815, died at Wardie, near Edinburgh, Nov. 18, 1854. In his 17th year he went to London with some idea of becoming a painter, and acquired a fa- cility in drawing which afterward proved of great assistance in his scientific explorations. In 1831 he went to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, but devoted himself especially to in- vestigations in natural history, and never took the degree of M. D. Dredging in the waters for specimens of submarine zoology, which at the commencement of his studies was a com- paratively new occupation to naturalists, be- came under his hands the means of opening a new field of research ; and the results of his labors, published in the " Magazine of Natural History," under the title of " Records of the Results of Dredging," were among his earliest contributions to scientific literature. In his 18th year he made a summer excursion to Nor- way, bringing back abundant specimens of its rocks, plants, and mollusca. He remained con- nected with the university of Edinburgh till 1839, varying his residence there by excursions to southern Europe, the Mediterranean, and Algeria. The greater part of 1837 he passed in Paris studying geology, mineralogy, and zoology, and working in the museum and col- lections of the jar din des pi antes. During this period he published also papers on the " Mol- lusca of the Isle of Man," the " Land and Fresh- Water Mollusca of Algiers," on the " Distribu- tion of the Pulmonifera of Europe," &c. In 1841 he published his " History of British Star Fishes," with 120 illustrations. In the spring of 1841 he went as naturalist on the surveying ship Beacon, destined for the coast of Asia Mi- nor, where she was to receive the Xanthian marbles, the existence of which had recently been made known by the explorations of Sir Charles Fellows. During the 18 months that Mr. Forbes remained on board the vessel he established by dredging operations in various depths of water the fact that the distribution of marine life, like that of terrestrial animals and vegetables, is determined by certain fixed laws, and that the zones which the different species inhabit are as distinctly marked in the one case by the climate and the depth and composition of the water, as in the other by temperature, altitude, and other influences. The results of these researches were given in a paper entitled " Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the ^Egean Sea, and on their Dis- tribution, considered as bearing on Geology," which was read before the meeting of the Brit- ish association in (Jork in 1843. He also as- sisted in the excavations of the cities on the Lycian Xanthus, the ruins of 20 of which he was instrumental in discovering. In 1846 he published, in conjunction with Lieut. Spratt, " Travels in Lycia, Milyas, and the Cibyratis." In the latter part of 1842 he was recalled to Eng- land by his appointment as professor of botany in King's college, London, and was soon after- ward appointed curator of the museum of the geological society, and paleontologist of the new museum of practical geology, established in connection with the ordnance geological survey. He subsequently became professor of natural history at this institution. Among the first fruits of his labors was a treatise " On the Connection between the Distribution of the Existing Fauna and Flora of the British Isles, and the Geological Changes which have af- fected their Area" (1846), in which the con- clusions arrived at, after investigations in an unusually wide field of speculative research, are that the fauna and flora of Britain, both terrestrial and marine, are members of families inhabiting a contiguous continent, which at no very remote period existed in the Atlantic, whence they migrated before, during, or after the glacial epoch. Of papers on zoology and geology he prepared previous to 1850 upward of 89, exclusive of his botanical papers or those published after that date, which are numerous; and his note books and collections contained