10 Biographical Memoir of Sir John Leslie. 



kept regular Journals, which are still preserved ; and which 

 shew that he was no less observant of the social, moral, and eco- 

 nomical condition of the countries he visited, than of their geo- 

 logical, meteorological, and physical aspects. 



For some years after the period just mentioned, he seems to 

 have employed himself in experimental pursuits, and to have 

 divided his time, chiefly, between London and Largo ; to which 

 place, and to the society of his family, he ever was fondly at- 

 tached. His earnings by literary labour, and his allowances, 

 had raised his humble fortune to what a Philosopher might view 

 as an independence ; and he accordingly employed or amused 

 himself as his own inclinations dictated. Early in the summer 

 of 1799 he set out with an old college acquaintance on a tour 

 to the northern kingdoms of Europe ; in the capitals of which, 

 the latter, who had for some time been settled in Spain as a 

 merchant, had business to transact. After traversing Denmark, 

 part of Norway, and Sweden, they proceeded through Bran- 

 denburg to Berlin ; and from thence returned to England about 

 the end of November. From his journal of this tour, which is 

 more detailed than any of those he subsequently kept, the Swe- 

 dish mines appear to have formed particular objects of his atten- 

 tion. One of his entries records his having, before quitting 

 Hamburg, written an account of his Hygrometer, for insertion 

 in Voght's Magazine, and in the Annales de Chim'ie. 



In the following year, he published the paper just mention- 

 ed, but with some alterations, in Nicholson's PhilosophicalJour- 

 nal. It is entitled a Description of an Hygrometer and Pho- 

 tometer ; and was followed with Additional Remarks on these 

 instruments. In the same year, he also published, in that Jour- 

 nal, a Paper On the Absorbent Powers of the Different Earths ; 

 and other two, containing Observations and EfXpcrivie^its on 

 Light and Heat, with Remarks on the Inquiries of Dr Herschel 

 on these objects.* These small pieces are very valuable, as 

 shewing the progress of his researches and discoveries in that 

 field of inquiry which their titles indicate. 



The results of his more extended investigations were, ere long, 

 to appear before the world in a different .shape. Having col- 



• See Nicholson's Journal for 1800, vol, iii. p. 461-518, and vol. iv. p. 190, 

 344, 416. 



