316 



GRAHAM, THOMAS. 



last desperate struggle, finally subduing liis 

 determined enemy, but at a great sacrifice of 

 lite. His skill and success won for him ad- 

 ditional rank in the peerage, while the East 

 India Company granted him an annual pension 

 of 2,000 a year. Parliament conferred a 

 similar pension on him and his next two suc- 

 cessors in the viscountcy. Lord Gough was 

 colonel of the Royal Horse Guards, colonel-in- 

 chief of the Sixtieth Royal Rifles, colonel of 

 the London Irish Volunteer Rifles, a Knight 

 of St. Patrick, of the Star of India, and of St. 

 Charles of Spain, and a Privy Councillor. 



GRAHAM, THOMAS, D. C. L., F. R. S., Mas- 

 ter of the Mint, an English physicist and 

 chemist, born at Glasgow December 21, 1805 ; 

 died in London, September 17, 1869. He was 

 educated at the Glasgow Grammar-School and 

 Glasgow University, and afterward spent two 

 years at Edinburgh, in the special study of 

 chemistry. On his return to Glasgow in 1828, 

 he established a laboratory there for the prac- 

 tical study of chemistry. He was very soon 

 appointed lecturer to the Mechanics' Institute 

 and Andersonian professor in the university. 

 In 1837 he was called from this professorship 

 to the chair of Chemistry in the London Uni- 

 versity, which he held with a constantly in- 

 creasing reputation till 1855, when he succeeded 

 Sir John Herschel, as Master of the Mint. 

 Among the chemical discoveries for which he 

 was honorably known, was that of the law of 

 the diffusion of gases, for which the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh gave him the Keith prize 

 in 1834. In 1862 the Royal Society, London, 

 of which he had been a fellow since 1836, be- 

 stowed the Copley medal on him for his valuable 

 speculations on the constitution of phosphates 

 and other salts, and for the discovery of the 

 diffusion of liquids, and the new method of 

 separation by dialysis. Mr. Graham was rec- 

 ognized as one of the ablest chemists in Eu- 

 rope, and had received numerous honors at 

 home and abroad for his attainments. The 

 Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France 

 elected him a corresponding member in 1848, 

 and the University of Oxford conferred on him 

 the honorary degree of D. C. L. in 1855. Of 

 his somewhat numerous scientific treatises, his 

 "Elements of Chemistry," a complete manual 

 on the subject, is best known, and has been 

 widely circulated in England, Germany, and 

 the United States. 



GREAT BRITAIN", or, THE UNITED KING- 

 DOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. Area, 

 120,879 English square miles. Population, ac- 

 cording to the census of 1861, 29,321,288 ; esti- 

 mated population in July, 1869, 30,621,431. 

 Government, constitutional monarchy. Queen, 

 Victoria L, born May 24, 1819 ; succeeded to 

 the throne June 20, 1837 ; crowned June 28, 



38; married February 10, 1840, to Prince 

 Albert of Saxe Cobnrg and Gotha, who, on his 

 marriage, became Prince-Consort; widowed, 

 December 14, 1861. Heir-apparent, Albert 

 Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



Victoria; born November 9, 1841; married, 

 March 10, 1863, to the Princess Alexandra, 

 eldest daughter of Christian IX., present King 

 of Denmark. The actual administration of the 

 affairs of the Government, except in some 

 minor details, is confided to the Cabinet, which 

 is of the same political character as the ma- 

 jority of the House of Commons for the time 

 being. The present Cabinet, which was formed 

 December 9, 1868, consists of the following 

 members : Right Hon. William Ewart Glad- 

 stone, Premier and First Lord of the Treasury; 

 Right Hon. Lord Hatherley, Lord High Chan- 

 cellor ; Right Hon. Earl de Grey and Ripon, 

 Lord President of the Council; Right Hon. 

 Earl of Kimberley, Lord Privy Seal ; Right 

 Hon. Robert Lowe, Chancellor of the Ex- 

 chequer; Right Hon. Henry Austin Bruce, 

 Secretary of State for the Home Department ; 

 Right Hon. Earl of Clarendon, Secretary of 

 State for the Foreign Department ; Right Hon. 

 Earl Granville, Secretary of State for the Co- 

 lonial Department ; Right Hon. Edward Card- 

 well, Secretary of State for the War Depart- 

 ment ; his Grace the Duke of Argyll, Secretary 

 of State for the Indian Department; Right 

 Hon. Hugh Culling Eardley Childers, First 

 Lord of the Admiralty; Right Hon. John 

 Bright, President of the Board of Trade ; Right 

 Hon. Chichester Fortescue, Chief Secretary for 

 Ireland ; Right Hon. the Marquis of Harting- 

 ton, Postmaster-General ; Right Hon. G. Joa- 

 chim Goschen, President of the Poor-law 

 Board. Besides these members of the Cabinet 

 (whose numbers vary in different administra- 

 tions, the Commissioner of Works, Chief Sec- 

 retary for Ireland, Postmaster-General, and the 

 President of the Poor-law Board, being some- 

 times Cabinet officers, and at others not hav- 

 ing a seat in it), there are from twenty to 

 twenty-five other ministerial officers not be- 

 longing to the Cabinet, but usually in sympa- 

 thy with it, and holding their appointments, 

 with a single exception, from the Premier for 

 the time being. The Commander-in-chief of 

 the army is a cousin of the Queen, and his po- 

 sition is not affected by Cabinet changes, but 

 the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the 

 Junior Lords of the Treasury and Admiralty, 

 the Under Secretaries of the Departments, the 

 Attorney and Solicitor General, the Judge- 

 Advocate-General, and several other officers, 

 are appointed by the Premier in power. The 

 present ministry, which is the most decidedly 

 Liberal one which has ever held the reins of 

 government in the United Kingdom, came into . 

 power as a result of the election of November, 

 1868, which returned, under the new Reform 

 law, so large a Liberal majority, that the Con- 

 servative ministry of Mr. Disraeli, which had 

 appealed to the people in that election, finding 

 themselves in a hopeless minority, threw up 

 their places without notice, and without wait- 

 ing, as was customary, for the assembling of 

 Parliament. The questions on which that 

 ministry had made shipwreck, and which the 



