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 government now granted 500l. towards the publication of his Ægean researches, which unfortunately he never had time to complete for the press. The Fullerian professorship at the Royal Institution was also offered to him but declined. The success with which his fertile mind was still grappling with important zoological questions is shown by his ingenious paper ‘On the Morphology of the Reproductive System of the Sertularian Zoophyte, and its analogy with the Reproductive System of the Flowering Plant,’ in ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ December 1844.

His work in connection with the Geological Survey gave a new and most important development to Forbes's ideas. His work was not only to discriminate, name, describe, and arrange the fossils collected by the survey, but also to visit the districts where the surveyors were working and examine the rocks with the fossils in them. Relieved by his improved income, Forbes now became a fellow of the Geological (4 Dec. 1844) and of the Royal Societies (13 Feb. 1845), and founded the club of the Metropolitan Red Lions, to which not only the younger scientific men, but also such literary men as Douglas Jerrold, Lover, and Jerdan were admitted. Forbes's songs and stories, as well as his brilliant conversation, encouraged good fellowship and cemented many friendships. Early in 1845 he gave a course of lectures at the Royal Institution on ‘The Natural History and Geological Distribution of Fossil Marine Animals.’ On 28 Jan. 1845 he was elected a member of the Athenæum Club by special vote, on the strong recommendation of Professor Owen. All this time he was struggling with debility and mental distress, during which he writes: ‘Had I foreseen the torrent of misfortunes which has poured on my family, I should have taken some other course in life that might have enabled me to assist them.’ To this year's meeting of the British Association at Cambridge he contributed a remarkable paper on the geographical distribution of local plants. After the meeting he went on a dredging expedition from the Shetlands round the west of Scotland and found many new medusæ and several living molluscs which had up to that time only been known in a fossil state. Wearied by routine work at the survey and the attempt to complete his book on Lycia, he had a severe illness in the winter of 1845–6, but between 30 March and 4 May 1846 he gave a course of lectures at the London Institution on ‘The Geographical and Geological Distribution of Organised Beings.’ The King's College lectures on botany followed immediately, but Forbes was able to finish his important paper ‘On the Connection between the Distribution of the existing Fauna and Flora of the British Isles and the Geological Changes which have affected their Area,’ published in the first volume of the ‘Memoirs of the Geological Survey,’ and to complete his ‘Lycia,’ which appeared in the autumn and became a standard work. In the autumn he was with the survey party in the North Wales mountains. At times he would amuse his companions by fantastic contortions of his body in imitation ‘of the elvish forms that he loved so much to design.’ Early in 1847 a remark of Forbes's led to the formation of the Palæontographical Society, which has done so much for British palæontology. In a lecture at the Royal Institution on 14 May, on ‘The Natural History Features of the North Atlantic,’ Forbes referred to the bearing of scientific research on deep-sea fisheries, and censured the government and the public for their neglect of the subject, which has only lately received much attention. He continued his preparation for his great work on the ‘History of British Mollusca’ (in conjunction with Mr. Sylvanus Hanley), which appeared in four volumes (1848–52). It was a work of vast research, for which many summer dredging excursions and visits to the museums of well-known collectors were made. During the autumn of this year, as throughout his remaining years in London, geological excursions were made on survey work. Of Forbes on these excursions Mr. (afterwards Sir A. C.) Ramsay wrote: ‘There never was a more delightful companion. It was on such occasions that his inner life best revealed itself. His knowledge was so varied, his conversation often so brilliant and instructive.’

On 31 Aug. 1848 Forbes married Emily Marianne, youngest daughter of General Sir Charles Ashworth [q. v.] After this his mind was continually unsettled by the prospect of Jameson's resignation or death, and the consequent chances of his succession to the Edinburgh chair of natural history. During the autumn of 1849 he made important discoveries in relation to the true position of the Purbeck beds, showing that they belonged to the oolitic series, and inferring the probable existence in them of mammalian remains afterwards found by the Rev. P. B. Brodie and Mr. S. H. Beckles (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xiii. 261). The winter of 1849–50 found Forbes busy with the arrangement of the new geological museum of the survey at Jermyn Street, but literary and lecturing work absorbed most of his time. In the summer a dredging expedition among the Western Hebrides, with Goodsir and MacAndrew, added many species