B-2 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



his colleague, was the late Sir \Yyvilie Thomson. When in lS5ft he 

 accepted the professorship of cheniistr}' and natural historj^ in Queen's 

 University at Kingston, Canada, it was not surprising that he received 

 the most flattering public testimonials of esteem from his eminent 

 colleagues in the famous Scottish University. 



lie was thirty-one years of age when he tlius came to (Queen's, where 

 for five years he developed with success his botanical methods, and in 

 chemistry organized a system of labm-atorv teaching as Wilson and 

 Macadam were doing in Edinburgh, He was the originator and 

 organizer of the Botanical Society of Canada, which for the brief space 

 of his incumbency ilourished at Kmgston and resulted in the publication 

 of the Bulletin, a complete series of which forms a not inconsiderable 

 volume and can be seen in the library of the University of Dalhousie at 

 Halifax. When in 1S63 he accepted the professorship of chemistry and 

 mineralog}' in Dalhousie, this society disappeared in Kingston, but 

 reappeared under his presidency and the auspices of section four of the 

 Royal Society at Ottawa in 1891, under the form of the Botanical Club 

 of Canada. 



He was thirty six years of age when he came to Halifax, and the 

 very next 3'ear alter assuming charge of his university department with 

 practically that of botany and zoology thrown in, he also became 

 secretary of the Provincial Board of Agriculture, and on the abolition of 

 the Board he became secretary of a sub-department of the Provincial 

 Government — the Department of Agriculture so called. He was thus 

 for thirty two years the chemist and biologist of the university, and lor 

 thirty-one of them was also the practical head of the Agriculture Depart 

 ment of Nova Scotia. 



A list of his published works shows about 94 articles in botany 

 varying from the short notice of a new habitat or rare form to the 

 extensive monograph of a large order such as the Ranuncuiacea' , or the 

 Ericaceœ, or the Ferns of Canada ; 5 in zoology, (3 in chemistry, 40 

 reports and addresses on agriculture, two volumes of over 500 pages each 

 of the '-Journal of Agriculture,"' edited by him from 1865 to 1877, and 

 the following books, (abbreviated titles being given) : The Royal Water 

 Lily of South America and the Water Lilies of Britain, 100 pages, two 

 coloured plates, 1849. Edinburgh ; Catalogue of the Library of the Jvoyal 

 Society of Edinburgh; British Agriculture, 1858, Kdinburgh ; the' 

 Botanical Desciiptions of Mrs. Miller's Drawnigs of the Wild Flowers of 

 Xova Scotia, 2nd and 3rd series ; Litroduction to Tanner's Agricultural 

 Chemistry for the schools of Xova Scotia; The Fern Flora of Canada 

 with Gray's How Plants Grow, for the schools of Nova Scotia, and the 

 Nova Scotia Register of Thoroughbred Cattle. But this list by no 

 means indicates the extent of his work of this kind, some of which have 

 not been published. In 1858 he had prepared a work on the British 



