{apams] IN MEMORIAM—SIR JOHN WILLIAM DAWSON 9 
The higher education of women was also a subject to which he 
devoted much thought and attention, his efforts finally culminating 
in the establishment of the Royal Victoria College of McGill University, 
through the generosity of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. 
Sir William, on many occasions when funds were not forthcoming 
in sufficient amount to carry out the plans which he advocated, sub- 
scribed large sums out of his own limited private means, and he was 
also the continual helper of needy students desiring to avail themselves 
of the University’s teaching. 
Sir William received the degree of M.A. from the University of 
Edinburgh in 1856, and the degree of LL.D. from the same university 
in 1884. His attainments and the value of his contributions to science 
were widely recognized, and he was elected an honorary or correspond- 
ing member of many learned societies on both sides of the Atlantic. 
He was made a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1854, and 
of the Royal Society in 1862. He was the first president of the Royal 
Society of Canada, and occupied the same position in the Geological 
Society of America, and in both the American and British Associations 
for the Advancement of Science. In 1881 he was made a Companion of 
the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and the same year received 
the Lyell medal from the Geological Society of London. In 1882 he 
was selected by the Marquess of Lorne to be the first president of the 
Royal Society of Canada, and devoted much time and labour, under the 
Marquess of Lorne, to its organization and the framing of its 
constitution. 
In 1883 he attended the meeting of the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science, at Southport, in the interest of the meeting 
in Montreal in the following year, and spent the ensuing winter in 
Egypt and Syria studying the geology of those countries, more especially 
in its relation to sacred history, and accumulated much information 
on this subject, which appeared later in his book entitled “ Modern 
Science in Bible Lands,” as well as in other books and papers which he 
published subsequently. 
He took an active part in the organization and proceedings of the 
meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 
in Montreal in 1884, on the occasion of which he received the honour 
of knighthood. 
From the time of its institution he took the deepest interest in 
the Royal Society of Canada, and was unceasing in his labours on its 
behalf. In his inaugural address, as President of the Society, at its 
opening meeting, he pointed out the important services which the 
newly established society might render to Canadian men of science and 
