Biography : — John Templeton, Esq, 305 



by the fact, that the clouds which arise successively in gales of wind, bring- 

 ing with them heavy squalls and slight rain, assume a line which is at right 

 angles with the wind. Neither do I allow the correctness of his remark, 

 p. 456. (although it does not affect his argument in attempting to prove the 

 influence of terrestrial magnetism), that " if the wind were the sole agent 

 in determining their forms and positions, they ought always to stream in 

 the direction^of its current, as we see is uniformly the case in the analogous 

 instance of smoke." This is doubtless the case when any vapour issues from 

 an aperture, like smoke from a chimney ; but it soon begins to assume the 

 contrary form, and, when finally detached from its source, it takes a position 

 with respect to the wind like the clouds before mentioned, as maybe observed 

 in the distance, after a steamer has passed, leaving a dark volume behind her. 

 There are two other observations I have made, which I would men- 

 tion, although not immediately connected with the preceding remarks. 

 The first is, that the meteors commonly called falling stars are so much 

 lower between the tropics than with us, that I have frequently known 

 them to pass close to the masts of a vessel, and, bursting with a noise 

 like the firing of a pistol, emit a number of brilliant blue sparks. The 

 second is, that in long calms at sea, which sometimes, in certain latitudes, 

 are of several weeks' duration, the clouds appear heaped one on the other, 

 like mountains of snow, all round the horizon ; whilst, in the zenith, the 

 clear blue sky is as unsullied by a cloud as the watery mirror below is by a 

 wave. I remember once a bucket was thrown into the sea, and so per- 

 fect was the calm that, during three days, we were not separated from it a 

 stone's cast ; and actually, the third day, it struck against the very part of 

 the ship whence it was thrown. — W. H.^ R. iV. Yeovil^ April 22, 1829. 



Art. XI. Biography, 



Memoir of the late John Templeton, Esq., forming part of the Anniversary 

 Address delivered on the 24th of May, 1827, to the Belfast Natural 

 History Society, by the Rev. Thomas D. Hincks, M.R.I.A. &c., Presi-. 

 dent of that Society. Communicated by Dr. Drummond. 



{Concluded from Vol. I. p. 406.) 



In the year 1802, Mr. Templeton sent a new rose, which he had dis- 

 covered in 1795 or 1796, in the neighbourhood of Belfast, and after- 

 wards found in other parts of the north, to the Dublin Society, which 

 he named ^osa hibernica, but which was by many called the Templeton 

 rose. This Society had offered a reward of 5 guineas for the discovery 

 of new native plants, limiting the whole sum to 20 guineas. Mr. Tem- 

 pleton was of course adjudged this small sum, which has from some 

 mistake been called 50/., and spoken of as a liberal premium, by Sir J. 

 E. Smith, in different publications where he had occasion to mention 

 it. A similar prize was obtained by Dr. Scott, Professor of Botany to 

 Trinity College, Dublin, and by Dr. Wade, Professor of Botany to the 

 Dublin Society, for some new mosses; but, either from the fluctuation 

 attendant on the proceedings of a body constituted like the Dublin Society, 

 or from a supposition that the end of offering the reward was sufficiently 

 attained by directing the attention of botanists to discovery, the premium 

 was dropped after 1803. Had it been continued, Mr. Templeton would 

 have had an opportunity of again claiming it, not only for the Orobanche 

 rubra which he first discovered on Cave Hill in 1 805, and which has since 

 been found on basaltic rocks in other parts of the country and in Scotland, 



