Three generations

242 THE THIRD GENERATION
duplicates of marvels, in which other collectors were
deficient.
When these happy holidays were over, we carried
our aquarium to the inland county town fifteen miles
distant, where the " vestiges " of the sea were an
object-lesson for more than our pupils, and received
our due of praise from great and small.
We were able to keep the glass globe and its con-
tents in a fairly flourishing condition for eight or nine
months, during which Robert came to us for every
week-end, and never failed to bring with him a supply'
of sea-water. The end came with a case of dangerous
illness in the family, monopolizing the attention of
everybody, and when the invalid was better there
followed the necessity of shutting up the house for
the next holidays, and of going to the Highlands (still
further inland) for change of air and scene. The friend
to whom the aquarium was given accepted it gladly,
but he was too inexperienced to be able to preserve
it, so that in his hand it perished speedily.
It was during the earlier days of the school that
my brother found the ironstone which our father had
missed in sinking the main pit of Grange Colliery.
Naturally it was a source of much eager speculation.
The mention of it brings back visions of late arrivals
at the house in St. Catherine Street, where Robert
spent his week-ends, of midnight vigils round the
dining-room hearth, to which a lifelong friend and
near neighbour was summoned to assist by taps on
the wainscot heard next door. Then followed ex-
citing experiments on morsels of ironstone, which
were roasted in ingenious retorts improvised for the
occasion. The result of the melting process estab-
lished triumphantly the existence of the ironstone,