If IS HERBARIUM PRESENTED TO A UNIVERSITY. 417 



again referred to the day of danger in the Loch of Drum, 

 where he nearly lost his life an incident which seems 

 to have made a lasting impression on the man, as it was 

 calculated to do, and which he mentioned to me again 

 some time before his death. 



When they were all finally bound up and packed 

 carefully in a great corn-sack, which they filled, he looked 

 proud of their bulk, and referred merrily to the burden they 

 would be to John Taylor to get them to Aberdeen. They 

 recalled, he said, a similar burden of plants which formed 

 the herbarium of Dr. Murray,* author of " Northern Flora ; " 

 when, after his death in 1837, they were borne by the carrier 

 to Haddo House, where the gardener then lived who had 

 purchased them. 



During these days, he went over his books with Mr. 

 Taylor, and also his letters, pointing out where they were, in 

 view of his decease. Uncovering his grey hairs, he spoke 

 solemnly of his death and his desire to be buried in Alford 

 with a decent funeral. He made his friend promise, if 

 possible, " to put some queer stane on his head," to mark 



* Dr. Murray was once a medical practitioner in Alford, near 

 which he lived, at Smithyhill, and seems to have been a man in many 

 respects much before his time. He was imbued with a pure love of 

 science, especially Botany, and his "Northern Flora" was a praise- 

 worthy effort to catalogue the plants of the north of Scotland at an 

 early date. His memory is still warmly cherished in the Vale, where 

 stories are told of his scientific enthusiasm. His herbarium, which was 

 examined by Dr. Dickie, was bought at his death in 1837, by the 

 Haddo House gardener, who afterwards went to Australia, but it has 

 since been lost sight of. Can any one throw light on its history ? 

 A short account of Dr. Murray in the Aberdeen Herald^ from the 

 pen of his friend, Dr. Templeton, of Aberdeen, was all that appeared 

 of this uncommon man and scientist. 



2 E 



