96 Obitua7\t/ Notice, 



the age of twelve he showed the heiit of hib miud, for ''' as 

 soon as school hours were over he was always in some 

 workshop or other, constructing some kind of philosophical 

 instrument." * He took his Arts course at St Andrews 

 University, and graduated M.A. The remainder of his 

 course was taken in the University of Edinburgh, where 

 he not only attended the usual classes in the Divinity 

 Hall, but studied with enthusiasm in the classes of chem- 

 istry, anatomy, physiology (taught extra-murally by Dr 

 Knox), and especially natural histoi-y under Professor 

 Jameson, His first essay on a botanical subject appears 

 to have been a paper " On the Germination of Ferns," 

 which appeared in MS. in vol. x. of the Transactions of 

 the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, now in the library 

 of the Royal Physical Society. To this time belongs an 

 anecdote which we have from his son-in-law, the Ilev. Mr 

 Weir of Dumfries. His old friend, Dr W. A. F. Browne, 

 tells how Dr Macvicar, then a young man, announced that 

 he would lecture on botany in Edinburgh. There was, 

 however, no demand for what he had to supply, and at the 

 opening lecture there were present only two students — Dr 

 Browne and the late Professor Balfour. But thus began a 

 friendship of the three men wliich w'as always afterwards 

 kept up. 



Another who appreciated his qualifications to lecture on 

 science was Dr Chalmers, then Professor of Moral Philo- 

 sophy in the University of St Andrews. He proposed and 

 carried a motion for instituting in that university a lecture- 

 ship on Natural History, and Mr Macvicar, in 1827, was 

 the first appointed to the lectureship. He lectured there 

 for several years on a wide range of scientific subjects, and 

 at the same time aided in founding the Museum of Natural 

 History in St Andrews. In intervals of leisure he 

 visited Northern Germany and Denmark, forming at 

 Copenhagen an intimacy with Hans C. Oersted, the Danish 

 physicist. At a later period he was much in France and 

 Italy, studying art as well as science, and he also made a 

 tour in Canada and the United States. 



* Quoted in Moffat Times of 16th February 1884, from a manuscript sketch 

 of his life, vrritten (we believe) by Mr Samuel Neil, ex-rector of Moffat 

 Academv. 



