72 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



of obtaining more than the very smallest remuneration for 

 the hard work he had to undergo, all seemed to combine to 

 make him look forward to the time when he might escape 

 from the duties of a profession which was evidently so un- 

 congenial to his natural tastes and inclination. If I may 

 judge from what I saw of Dr Heddle during a few years' 

 fairly close acquaintance with him in the field, in the 

 museum, in the study, and by his bed-side, I should say 

 that Nature may have intended him for any one of many 

 professions. He was pre-eminently adapted to become a 

 first-rate actor; he would have made a clever lawyer; as 

 a mechanician his talents showed themselves equally well ; 

 he was, as we all know, eminent as a mineralogist; he 

 proved an excellent geognoser ; but, assuredly, he did not 

 possess that particular combination of special gifts and 

 acquirements which leads to success in the medical profes- 

 sion. So Dr Heddle eventually turned his attention from 

 medicine, and for the remainder of his life devoted it to 

 chemistry and geognosy. It is well for the scientific world 

 that he did so, for the line of work that he then elected to 

 take led to his becoming one of the foremost mineralogists 

 of his day. 



In 1856, soon after the date of this resolve, he chartered a 

 boat and went to Faroe, where he succeeded in collecting, 

 from the decomposition-products of the Tertiary volcanic 

 rocks there, an extensive collection of zeolites. By means of 

 the numerous duplicates obtained on this occasion, he was 

 enabled to effect advantageous exchanges with other miner- 

 alogists, and thus formed the nucleus around which gathered 

 the large collection to be again referred to presently. 



For several years he acted as assistant to Professor Connell, 

 who held the Chair of Chemistry at the University of 

 St Andrews; and all through Connell's long illness and 

 absence from the Lecture-Room there, Heddle filled his 

 place. When the professorship at last became vacant, which 

 was the case in 1862, Dr Heddle succeeded to the post. 



Dr Heddle filled the Chair of Chemistry at St Andrews 

 for twenty years. He was very popular with the students, 

 for many reasons, but chiefly because he was an admirable 



