210 DAVID LYALL, M.D. 



Pension. Dr. Lyall received his medical education at Aberdeen, 

 where he took his M.D. degree, having previously been admitted a 

 Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. As was 

 not unfrequently the case with young Aberdonian medical men, 

 he sought to improve his medical knowledge, and throw himself 

 early on his own resources, by undertaking a voyage to Greenland 

 as surgeon to a whaling-ship ; and this no doubt led to his being 

 selected, immediately after entering the Royal Navy in 1839, for 

 service under Sir James Ross in the expedition then being fitted 

 out for a scientific voyage to the Antarctic Regions. He was 

 appointed Assistant-Surgeon of H.M.S. 'Terror' (the consort of 

 H.M.S. 'Erebus') under Commander Crozier, to wliich duties Sir 

 James (tlien Captain) Eoss added those of forming botanical 

 collections. 



During this voyage, which did not return to England till late 

 in 1842, his conduct was officially reported to the Admiralty as 

 "meriting the highest commendation." The writer of this notice 

 was a brother officer of Dr. Lyall's during that expedition (an 

 intercourse that led to a lifelong friendship), and has added his 

 tribute to the value of his services in the following passages : — 

 *' To him were due many of the botanical results of the expe- 

 dition" {FL Antarctica, vol. i. p. xii). " He formed a most important 

 herbarium, amounting to no less than 1500 species " ; he also, 

 during the five winter months of 1842, when the ships remained in 

 Berkeley Sound, made a "beautiful collection of interesting Algae," 

 which formed "an important addition to Antarctic botany" {op. 

 cit., part ii. 215). On this expedition was found, in Kerguelen's 

 Land, the remarkable plant named by the writer LyaUia. 



Shorly after the return of the Antarctic Expedition Dr. Lyall 

 was appointed to the Mediterranean, where he served in several com- 

 missions as Assistant- Surgeon till 1847, when he was promoted, and, 

 at the recommendation of Sir W. Hooker, was selected as Surgeon 

 and Naturalist to accompany Capt. Stokes in H.M.S. ' Acheron' on 

 the survey of the coast of New Zealand. Here, devoting himself 

 to the collection of the lower orders of plants especially, he amassed 

 the most beautiful and extensive herbarium in these branches of 

 botany which had ever been formed in the islands, besides making 

 considerable discoveries in phfenogamic plants, and collecting some 

 that had only been previously gathered by Banks and Solander. 

 Among his many important botanical discoveries in this survey was 

 that of the monarch of all buttercups, the gigantic white-flowered 

 Ranunculus Lyallii, the only known species with peltate leaves, the 

 " water-lily " of the New Zealand shepherds. 



In 1852 Dr. Lyall was appointed Surgeon and Naturalist to the 

 * Assistance,' one of the squadron sent out to the Arctic Regions, 

 under the command of Sir E. Belcher, in search of Sir John Franklin. 

 "When in this service he received an acting order as lieutenant in 

 command of one of the sledges employed in the search; and further, 

 as senior medical officer of the expedition, he was appointed Super- 

 intending Surgeon of the ' North Star,' when the crews of the 

 ' Investigator,' ' Resolution,' and ' Intrepid,' and the invalids of the 



