Transactions. 247 



your Society, I do so believing that such disposition would have been 

 agreeable to my father's wishes could he have been consulted, and I am 

 glad to be the medium of tendering you this donation to your library. 

 I have the honour to be. 



Yours very truly, 



Robert Dinwiddie. 



The Secretary was directed to write thanking the donor for 

 his valuable present. 



Mr James Lennox, F.S.A. (the Librarian) read the following 

 ■paper entitled " The Dinwiddie Library, and how it came to this 

 Society" : — 



The original owner, Mr Eobert Dinwiddie, was born in 

 Dumfries, 23d July, 1811, and died at New York, 12th July, 

 1888. He was the third son of Mr "William Dinwiddie, hosier. 

 Commencing life in the Dumfries branch of the Commercial Bank 

 of Scotland, he rose to be teller. He emigrated to America in 

 1835, and joined the house of Brown Brothers, merchants and 

 bankers in New York ; shortly afterwards entering the employment 

 of J. Laurie & Co., commission merchants, in which business he 

 succeeded them, being left by them to administer funds for St. 

 Luke's and the Presbyterian Hospital in connection with the St. 

 Andrew's Society of New York. 



He retired from business in 1883, and then devoted more of 

 his time to scientific pursuits, although he had always been a 

 worker both in archaeology and botany. His attainments in these 

 had been recognised, as he was fifteen years a member of the New 

 York Academy of Sciences and an active member of the Micro- 

 scopical Society up to the day of his death. Some years ago he 

 gifted the whole of his extensive scientific library to the New 

 York Academy of Sciences, and what is now under our own roof 

 has been collected since that date, being more valuable as they arc 

 more recent. 



He visited this country a few years ago, being here when the 

 Cryptogamic Society were in Dumfries, and during his stay he 

 was admitted a life member of this Society. The history of the 

 New York Academy of Science contains a portrait of him, but no 

 mention appears in the text, as it was with great difiiculty that 

 they persuaded him to sit for this plate, but on no account would 

 he allow anything to be said of him. 



The books consist of 229 bound volumes and 22 unbound. 

 They embrace ; — 24 Microscopic, o Medicine, 8 Geology, 24 



