SKETCH OF SIR JOSEPH HENRY GILBERT. 121 



going through school he was injured by a gunshot, by which his 

 health was impaired for a time, and he lost the use of one eye. 

 He entered the University of Glasgow, where he gave special at- 

 tention to chemistry and worked in the laboratory of the late 

 Prof. Thomas Thomson. Next he went to University College, 

 London, where he attended the classes of Prof. Graham and oth- 

 ers, and worked in the laboratory of the late Dr. Anthony Todd 

 Thomson. Having spent a short time in the laboratory of Prof. 

 Liebig, at Giessen, and received the degree of Ph. D., he returned 

 to University College, London, and acted as class and laboratory 

 assistant to Prof. Thomson in the winter and summer sessions of 

 1840-'41, attending other courses in the college at the same time. 

 After this he devoted some time to the chemistry of calico-print- 

 ing, dyeing, etc., in the neighborhood of Manchester. From 1843, 

 when he became associated with Mr. Lawes at Rothamsted as 

 director of the laboratory, his career has been recorded in the his- 

 tory of that institution ; and it is difficult to separate the work of 

 the two, who have co-operated harmoniously and efficiently. The 

 results of their investigations have been published in a series of 

 papers, now numbering more than a hundred, in various jour- 

 nals, among which may be mentioned : The Proceedings and 

 Transactions of the Royal Society, the Journal of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England, the Journal of the Chemical 

 Society, the Reports of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, the Journal of the Statistical Society, the Jour- 

 nal of the Society of Arts, etc. ; also in official reports and else- 

 where. 



Dr. Gilbert was elected a member of the Chemical Society in 

 1841, the year of its formation, and he contributed to the first vol- 

 ume of its memoirs a translation of a paper on the Atomic Weight 

 of Carbon, by Prof. Redtenbacher and Prof. Liebig. He was 

 president of the society in 1882-'83. He was elected a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society in 1860, and in 1867 the council of the society 

 awarded to him, in conjunction with Mr. Lawes, one of the royal 

 medals. He is also a Fellow of the Linnsean Society and of the 

 Royal Meteorological Society. He was President of the Chemical 

 Section of the British Association in 1880. He traveled consider- 

 ably in the United States and Canada in 1882 and 1884, studying 

 the conditions of the agriculture of these countries. He was ap- 

 pointed Sibthorpian Professor of Rural Economy in the Univer- 

 sity of Oxford in 1884, and was reappointed for a second period of 

 three years in 1887. He has honorary degrees from the Univer- 

 sities of Oxford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He is a life governor 

 of University College, London, an honorary member of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England, of the Chemico-Agricultural 

 Society of Ulster, of the Academy of Agriculture and Forestry of 



