Volume 1

Robert Dick : baker, of Thurso, geologist and botanist / by Samuel Smiles.

  • Samuel Smiles
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Robert Dick : baker, of Thurso, geologist and botanist / by Samuel Smiles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    purchase out of the savings of his single bakery. I also found that Robert Dick was a profound botanist. I found, to my humiliation, that this baker knew infinitely more of botanical science—ay, ten times more—than I did; and that there were only some twenty or thirty British plants that he had not collected. Some he had obtained as presents, some he had purchased, but the greater portion had been accumulated by his own industry in his native county of Caithness. These specimens were all arranged in most beautiful order, with their respective names and habitats; and he is so excellent a botanist that he might well have been a professed ornament of Section D [Zoology and Botany]. I have mentioned these facts,” concluded the Baronet, “in order that the audience may deduce a practical application.” This notice of Robert Dick, by a man of so much eminence as Sir Roderick Murchison, interested me greatly. His perseverance in the cause of Science, while pursuing the occupations of his daily labour—his humility, his modesty, and his love of nature—were things well worthy of being commemorated. But I was at that time unable to follow up my inquiries. I could merely mention him in Self-Help, which was published in the following year, as an instance of cheerful, honest working, and of energetic effort to make the most of small means and ordinary opportunities.
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