SKETCHES OF DECEASED MEMBERS. PIERS. XC1 



was an original member of the Institute and active in its 

 organization, the preliminary meetings having been held in his 

 office; served as its second vice-president (1862-3), but 

 severed his connection with the society about 1880. He 

 contributed to its early Transactions four papers on ethnolog- 

 ical subjects and on the geology and economics of coal. His 

 elaborate paper on 'The Fesitval of the Dead' attracted rather 

 wide attention at the time of its publication. His writings 

 elsewhere were extremely numerous, and a list of them will be 

 found in Morgan's 'Canadian Men and Women of the Time,' 

 1898, p. 423. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical 

 Society and of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries 

 (Copenhagen), a member of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, etc., and about 1875 was the first 

 colonist by birth to be elected to the council of the Royal 

 Colonial Institute. 



COLONEL WILLIAM JAMES MYERS, F. R. Met. Soc., meteor- 

 ologist. Born, doubtless in Scotland, about 1807; died at 

 Halifax, 15 April, 1867. Myers had been major of the 71st 

 Regiment of Highland Light Infantry which had served in 

 Canada, Bermuda and the West Indies from 1824 to 1846. 

 He received his captaincy on 29th December, 1835; his major- 

 ity on 22nd November, 1842; and on 19th March, 1847, re- 

 tired on the half-pay of the Royal Staff Corps, being subse- 

 quently commissioned lieut. -colonel on 20th June, 1854, and 

 colonel on 26th October, 1858, (vide Army Lists). He came 

 to Nova Scotia from Quebec and settled in Windsor, where he 

 lived for a while, marrying Jean Gordon, daughter of Rev. 

 Archibald Gray of St. Matthew's Church, Halifax. Their 

 daughter became the wife of pur late president, J. Matthew 

 Jones. Col. Myers left Windsor and came to Halifax about 

 1856, living at 'Ashbourne,' Dutch Village, afterwards well- 

 known as the residence of his son-in-law, Mr. Jones. The past 

 generation had pleasant recollections of him as a fine gentleman. 

 He died suddenly while preparing to leave his house to attend 



