The Savant.

Some men gain the bubble, reputation, at the cannon's mouth, while others gain it through the Post Office. Tyndall once expressed his surprise that all manner of persons who were unknown to him presumed to address him, asking him all sorts of questions and desiring all kinds of services. Herbert Spencer found his reduced working powers and limited time so encroached upon by correspondence that he had a letter printed, declining in advance to reply to all unauthorised communications.

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Colonial savans overwhelm themselves with labour on the eve of the departure of the European mails, keeping up a correspondence which, they seem to imagine, reflects honour on them. And they are not, in a way, mistaken. The friends of a colonial savant appealed to the extent of his correspondence with European and American scientists in proof of the reality of his scientific claims and position, which were disputed. As the christeners of newly "discovered'' mountain, lake, river, or glacier, they are often able to put foreign savans under obligation to them, and they are sometimes able to render them more real services by sending them collections from distant lands or communicating observations they have made.

Grey cannot rightly be classed among the scientific pretenders, but he was far from insensible to the glory to be acquired by associating himself with eminent men of science in the old country. His industry and intelligence entitled him to the distinction. When he explored Western Australia, he embarked on a wide sea and sounded deep waters. His soundings yielded many a treasure. In May, 1839, Professor (afterwards Sir Eichard) Owen acknowledged some specimens he had sent, doubtless to the College of Surgeons, of whose museum Owen was then curator, stating that they were either new or rare, and in either case were of great utility. Grey, it already appeared, was something more than a collector; if not a savant, he was a keen observer, and his observations on the action of the hood in the hooded lizard, according to Owen, disclosed "a new and interesting fact" in natural history. In December, 1840 and January and February, 1841, he presented the British Museum with mineral and zoological specimens and collections of fossils and shells. These were all fruits of his explorations in Western Australia. His brief residence at Albany was no less fruitful, and this time the British Museum made a special acknowledgment of his donations.

During his four years' residence in South Australia he continued to send home all kinds of scientific specimens. Some hundreds of mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and page 29crustaceans were despatched to the national repository. Besides these, the indefatigable collector sent 265 rare or novel plants and 290 rock specimens and minerals. No wonder that the Trustees again specially acknowledged his benefactions.

He was catholic in his gifts. To the Horticultural Society of London he sent 52 packets of seeds, and to the Geological Society a collection of fossils. Probably, no other Governor has contributed as copiously to museums. His numerous collections may be described as the response of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa to the maternal generosity of the Motherland, which has endowed its colonies with useful seeds, plants, and animals from all parts of the globe.

Grey was sympathetic with the pursuits of men of science and was ever ready to aid them. Lyell wrote to him in 1843 that Owen agreed with him in the opinion he had expressed about some cetacean remains he had sent Home. Anthropologists like Lubbock appealed to him for information on the religious ideas of Australians, especially of the kobongs, on which Grey was well qualified to instruct him. Inquiries are often made of colonial Governors, who usually apply to some expert in the colony, but Grey was one of the few who could personally supply the information desiderated. All Governors welcome men of scientific or literary distinction from England or other countries, but Grey was able to extend a hospitality of mind as well as of hearth. He was no less sympathetic with the toils of others. He had been resident in South Australia when Sturt and Eyre set out on their memorable journeys; Eyre was afterwards appointed his lieutenant-governor in the South Island of New Zealand, and he joined in recommending that Sturt, now blind and ailing, should be knighted. Where no political rivalries thwarted his natural instincts, he could be both just and generous.