echnicalities, and nice distinctions, of formal Natural History; who
enjoy Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of science.
Let them follow their bent freely: but let them not suppose that in
following it they can do nothing towards enlarging our knowledge of
Nature, especially when on foreign stations. So far from it, drawings
ought always to be valuable, whether of plants, animals, or scenery,
provided only they are accurate; and the more spirited and full of genius
they are, the more accurate they are certain to be; for Nature being
alive, a lifeless copy of her is necessarily an untrue copy. Most
thankful to any officer for a mere sight of sketches will be the closet
botanist, who, to his own sorrow, knows three-fourths of his plants only
from dried specimens; or the closet zoologist, who knows his animals from
skins and bones. And if anyone answers--But I cannot draw. I rejoin,
You can at least photograph. If a young officer, going out to foreign
parts, and knowing nothing at all about physical science, did me the
honour to ask me what he could do for science, I should tell him--Learn
to photograph; take photographs of every strange bit of rock-formation
which strikes your fancy, and of every widely extended view which may
give a notion of the general lie of the country. Append, if you can, a
note or two, saying whether a plain is rich or barren; whether the rock
is sandstone, limestone, granitic, metamorphic, or volcanic lava; and if
there be more rocks than one, which of them lies on the other; and send
them to be exhibited at a meeting of the Geological Society. I doubt not
that the learned gentlemen there will find in your photographs a valuable
hint or two, for which they will be much obliged. I learnt, for
instance, what seemed to me most valuable geological lessons, from mere
glances at drawings--I believe from photographs--of the Abyssinian ranges
about Magdala.

Or again, let a man, if he knows nothing of botany, not trouble himself
with collecting and drying specimens; let him simply photograph every
strange and new tree or plant he sees, to give a general notion of its
species, its look; let him append, where he can, a photograph of its
leafage, flower, fruit; and send them to Dr. Hooker, or any distinguished
botanist: and he will find that, though he may know nothing of botany, he
will have pretty certainly increased the knowledge of those who do know.

The sportsman, again--I