1912-13.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 161 



In one of the epistles in the booklets, referring to his 

 brother Douglas Gardiner, he says of him : 



Ye say the earth is like a ha', 



The moon an' starns are warlds sae braw ; 



Whare did ye git sic jargon-jaw, 



Ye magic man '. 

 The best book ye could read ava', 



Says ye are wrang. 



This Douglas Gardiner, as other verses show, -was a man 

 with many scientific tastes and abilities, and had a good 

 knowledge of the sciences as known in these times. I am 

 told that, among other occupations, he was consulted as a 

 herbalist. He possessed a microscope and an air-pump ; 

 used electric apparatus of some kind ; knew a good deal of 

 chemistry ; and had an excellent knowledge of plants, both 

 as to their identification in the field and garden and their 

 essential properties as applied in the arts and in medicine. 

 Several papers by him, which appear in his nephew's 

 •■ Botanical Repository." indicate an acquaintance with 

 historical botany and physiology rather exceptional, one 

 would think, for a man in his station ; and altogether he 

 impresses me as a man of culture, about whom I would 

 like to know more than can now be known. He was 

 secretary or curator of the Dundee Rational Institution, 

 which was founded in 1811 <; to facilitate the acquisition of 

 literary and scientific knowledge, and to increase the 

 pleasure which results from that acquisition." 1 



The Institution survived till 1820, and if we may judge 

 from the list of museum specimens, scientific apparatus, and 

 valuable books offered for sale on its dissolution, it had 

 something to show for the years of its existence, xlmong 

 its active members were Lord Ivory in his younger days ; 

 the parish minister's son, J. G. Macvicar, afterwards parish 

 minister at Moffat, and well known for his work in 

 philosophy ; Henry Stephens, author of the " Book of the 

 Farm " ; and among many other notables, William Lyon 

 Mackenzie, whose activity in the Canadian rebellion of 

 1837 induced the Government of that period to offer a 

 reward of £1000 for his apprehension, and won for him 

 the appellation of that "traitor Mackenzie" from Lord 

 John Russell. I have treated Gardiner's father and uncle 

 1 " Scots Magazine," 1816, p. 169. 



