A VETERAN SCIENTIST.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 5

A VETERAN SCIENTIST.

SIR JAMES HECTOR. A GLIMPSE OF HIS STUDY. "That finger is stiff} that was done with breaking stones." The speaker was Sir James Hector. The aged scientist I was standing in his study, in the midst of his' beloved books. His life was bound in some of those volumes, for generations to read. A desk, with pens and paper handy, showed thab lifl was still concerned with work. He was gaaing meditatively at his disabled hand, and a representative of the Post could see a finger bent back- That was the hand that had held geological specimens while the expert's hammer brok* them. He did not know that the journalist was memorising bis chance words while his mind went back to the past for a little while. Here was a man of seventy-three years, who has truly led the strenuous life. His faculties have been always alive, always in full play, and now at an age when many human beings would have their senses blurred and pass their days in childish prattle, his mind is still keen, bis memory is still a faithful mirror for achievements of long ago. In reply to a chance question, he could furnish details of reports that he submitted to the Government of a day thirty or forty years back. "I am seventy-three," he said. ''I came put to New Zealand in 1861. I suppose J am the only man who ever travelled over all parts of New Zealand. I have many manuscripts that have never been published. My head is clear, but when I sit down to write. — ." He made a sad gesture with a hand which long years of. arduous work had cnppjted, "If I had a stenographer !" The pressman pictured the gain to New Zealand and the world if the veteran scientist's recollections and unpublished notes were collected and collated. He remembered that the Government was sending out commissioners to put on paper the reminiscences of early settlers, bub what of this one, the greatest of the pioneers? He could recite precious me. mories, not only of New Zealand, but other countries. The great store-house would give up jewels of many hues. Though a desire to see the world's knowledge supplemented should prompt the Government to place secretaries at the scientist's disposal, yet it might seem callous to put the war-horse into harness again after fighting a very good fight. Perhaps Sir James might spare an hour or two, now and again, for a stenographer when bis thoughts run workwards. New Zealanders have had Sir Janu* Hector so long in their midst that they are apt to fancy that ho belongs exclusively to them. They m.ay be inclined to imagine that his fame was made in this land alone. But other countries have claims upon him. He took the degree of M.D. in 1856, at Edinburgh, his Eirthplaoe, when he was only twentytwo years old. But Dr. Hector was destined to be greater in natitral science than in medicine, though the honoura he won at an early age indicated that hiß career in the arena of life-saving would have been brilliant. Geology had already interested him, and he had made great progress in this science, so that in March, 1857, he was selected by Sir Roderick Murchison, Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, to accompanying the Palliser expeditiqn to tho Rocky Mountains, in the dual role of surgeon and geologist. He mapped out that country thoroughly. He found a pass for the trans-continental railway; he was the first to discover glaciers in the Rockies. This report is so valuable that enquiries for it still cwne from overpeas. By the last mail from San Fran, cisco Sir James received three letters asking for copies of the work. Honours, well deserved, have been bestowed on Sir James Hector, but they have not altered the modest mren that belongs to the true scientist. He lives quietly at Petone, and just as. quietly comes to town occasionally to attend meetings of scientific associations.