SKETCH OF SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 549 



Their works have outlived them, and commercial men and sailors have 

 reason every day to bless the memory of both ; and of the English- 

 man, his successor as Principal of the University of Edinburgh has 

 said with truth, " Every lighthouse that burns round the shores of the 

 British Empire is a shining witness to the usefulness of Brewster's 

 life." 



Hardly less important in forwarding the progress of science than 

 his direct labors, was the part which Brewster took in the formation 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. " The de- 

 cline of science " had been much talked of among scientific men for 

 several years, and much thought had been given to the consideration 

 of means of reviving scientific interest, when Brewster, reviewing in 

 the " Quarterly Review " a work on the subject by Babbage, proposed 

 " an association of our nobility, clergy, gentry, and jDhilosophers," as 

 that which " can alone draw the attention of the sovereign and the 

 nation to this blot upon its fame." In the course of a few succeeding 

 months, the plan of the British Association met with general accept- 

 ance, and was soon thoroughly matured ; and the first meeting, held 

 at York, in September, 1831, at which three hundred and twenty-five 

 members enrolled their names, and a zeal for science was excited 

 " which will not soon subside," was attended with a success that " in- 

 finitely surpassed all our most sanguine expectations." At the twen- 

 tieth meeting of the Association, held in Edinburgh in 1850, Brewster 

 was the president. 



Brewster's literary activity kept pace with his scientific work. It 

 was begun at the same time, in 1799, when he became a regular con- 

 tributor to the " Edinburgh Magazine," and was continued in various 

 shapes as he had new investigations of his own to describe, the work 

 of others or any marked progress in science to review, or views of his 

 own to publish on the topics which from time to time became promi- 

 nent in the various regions of thought. In 1807, acting upon a casual 

 hint given him by the Rev. Mr. Ramsay, of Tranent, of how much a 

 good and thorough encyclopaedia was needed, he began the "Edinburgh 

 Encyclopaedia," which was not completed till 1830. In connection 

 with this work we find him, just after the first two numbers had been 

 published, writing to his friend Veitch for a drawing and description 

 of his new plow, to be inserted in the article " Agriculture," and men- 

 tioning an intention also "to publish in the same article a curious paper 

 by Mr. Jefferson, President of the United States, on a plow-ear which 

 offers the least possible resistance." This work was strongest in the 

 scientific department, to which the editor contributed many of the 

 most valuable articles. Like all such works requiring a combination 

 of many minds, it was difiicult to manage, and cost Brewster much 

 labor, vexation, and anxiety. He was afterward a contributor to the 

 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," to the seventh and eighth editions of which 

 he furnished articles on hydrodynamics, magnetism, microscope, op- 



