Ohituary Notice of Br Heddle. 73 



lecturer, good at experiments and practical work, and 

 possessed the gift — unfortunately so rare in those who 

 hold such appointments — of inspiring his students with 

 enthusiasm. 



In 1889 he was invited by a well-known financier to act 

 as consulting-mineralogist in connection with some gold- 

 mines in South Africa. After taking due precautions as 

 regards possibilities in the future, in which part of the 

 transactions the Doctor's turn for matters pertaining to law 

 came into useful prominence, he vacated the Chair at 

 St Andrews, and went to South Africa. But after making 

 a full and proper inspection of the evidence on the ground, 

 the Doctor felt himself obliged to express himself unable to 

 endorse some of the statements that had been made regard- 

 ing the enterprise referred to. This step led to his return to 

 Britain, and to some legal proceedings, in which the Doctor 

 won his case. It may be mentioned that it was from the 

 annuity which his foresight and legal acumen enabled him 

 to secure from this undertaking, before abandoning his pro- 

 fessorship at St Andrews, that he drew part of his income in 

 the later years of his life. 



Mineralogy formed the chief of Dr Heddle's many pursuits. 

 It was upon this, his favourite science, that nearly all his 

 energy, his time, his thought, and also large sums of money 

 were expended. It is a matter of common knowledge how 

 that, in the course of a long and active life, he acquired one of 

 the finest general collections of minerals ever amassed by any 

 one man, and also how that, during the same time, he dili- 

 gently explored nearly every mountain and glen, and almost 

 every part of the coast of Scotland, in search of minerals. 

 With Mr Patrick Dudgeon of Cargen, Mr Harvie -Brown of 

 Dunipace, and a few other chosen friends of similar tastes, 

 he visited every locality for minerals which previous observers 

 had recorded, and furthermore, himself added a large number 

 of new localities to the list previously known. These visits 

 resulted in the acquisition of the celebrated " Heddle Collec- 

 tion of Scottish Minerals," the finest local collection in the 

 world. It must be borne in mind that travelling in the 

 Doctor's early days was by no means the comparatively easy 



