1854.] Linnean Society. 305 



raical discovery, confirmed him in his predilection for the last-named 

 science. His destination was early fixed for the ministry : after 

 some years passed under the tuition of Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, he 

 became a student of the New College, Hackney, and a favourite 

 pupil, in their respective lines, of Gilbert Wakefield, and of Priestley, 

 who delighted him by claiming his assistance in the arrangement of 

 his new laboratory. For nearly two years Mr. Aikin was the mi- 

 nister of a highly respectable congregation at Shrewsbury; but at 

 the end of that time (from motives which did him nothing but honour) 

 he relinquished the clerical profession. He made several tours in 

 North Wales, of one of which, undertaken in 1796 in company with 

 his brother Charles and another friend, he published an interesting 

 and instructive account, under the title of ' Journal of a Tour 

 through North Wales and Part of Shropshire, with Observations in 

 Mineralogy and other branches of Natural History,' Lond. 1797, 8vo. 

 Henceforward his home was in London, and for many years in the 

 house of his brother, the late Mr. Charles Rochemont Aikin, in con- 

 junction with whom he delivered Lectures on Chemistry and Che- 

 mical Manufactures, of which a 'Syllabus' appeared in 1799, and 

 published ' A Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy,' Lond. 1807, 

 2 vols. 4to ; and ' An Account of the most recent Discoveries in 

 Chemistry and Mineralogy,' Lond. 1814, 4to. 



About the year 1814 Mr. Aikin became one of the Secretaries of 

 the Geological Society, then newly established, and of which he was 

 an original member ; and published 'A Manual of Mineralogy,' Lond. 

 1814, 8vo, of which a second edition was called for in the following 

 year. In 1817 he was elected Secretary of the Society of Arts, 

 which office he continued to hold until 1839 ; and during this period 

 (chiefly in the years 1828-38) he delivered to the Society a series 

 of " Illustrations of Arts and Manufactures," a selection from which 

 he collected into a volume published in 1841. He was dso active 

 in the formation of the Chemical Society, of which he became Pre- 

 sident during the years 1843 and 1844, being the third and fourth 

 years of its existence. The last oflice which he retained was that of 

 Lecturer on Chemistry at Guy's Hospital, which he resigned in 1852, 

 after holding it for more than thirty years. Through a long career, 

 he preserved, without the smallest deviation, " the even tenour of 

 his way." To an extraordinary variety, extent and accuracy of 

 knowledge, both theoretical and practical, he united a total absence 

 of ambition, simple and courteous manners, an imperturbable tem- 

 per, and great benevolence of heart. He never engaged in a con- 

 troversy, and never made an enemy. His election into the Linnean 



