358 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. [Sess. uxxi. 
held was manifested in the concourse of about 7000 people 
who joined in the funeral procession. 
ALEXANDER BucuHan, LL.D., F.R.SS. L. and E. 
Alexander Buchan was born at Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire, 
in 1829. From the parish school he came to the Free Church 
Normal School in Edinburgh, and there and at the University 
he pursued his studies to qualify for the teaching profession. 
At the University he took a high place in his classes, and 
graduated M.A. In 1848 he was appointed schoolmaster at 
Banchory, and thereafter at Blackford, and lastly at Dunkeld. 
For twelve years he continued teaching and was very suc- 
cessful, but an affection of the throat became so embarrassing 
that he had reluctantly to abandon the teaching profession. 
He had always had a great love for botanical studies, and 
particularly for field botany, and these he kept up during 
his residence in the country. This bore fruit in the first 
paper he contributed to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 
which was a “ List of Plants observed in the neighbourhood 
of Blackford, Perthshire,’ and is published in the “ Trans- 
actions” for 1858. In that year he was one of a notable 
party of botanists who accompanied Professor J. H. Balfour 
and his students in a famous expedition to the Alps of 
Switzerland. His love for field botany remained to the end 
a source of keen enjoyment to him. He had early taken a 
keen interest in the science of meteorology, and his com- 
pulsory retiral from the teaching profession proved the 
turning-point in what became a highly distinguished career. 
This happened at a time of great activity and rapid advance 
in the evolution of the new science of meteorology. In 
Edinburgh, men like Thomas Stevenson, Milne Home, and 
Sir Arthur Mitchell had laid the foundation of the Scottish 
Meteorological Society, which was destined to become a focus 
for collecting observations from all parts of Scotland and a 
controlling centre for one of the most completely organised 
and equipped networks of volunteer meteorological stations 
to be found in any country. In the year 1860 he abandoned 
school teaching, and in the same year he was called to 
Edinburgh as Secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society, 
with whose great work his name is so indissolubly associated 
