152 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



allied to chemistry, and most likely to allow him to indulge 

 his predilection for science. For three years he prosecuted 

 his medical studies at Edinburgh, and thereafter, as was 

 then the custom, repaired to the continent to complete his 

 professional training. He remained nearly two years in 

 Paris, pursuing there with ardour the studies of chemistry 

 and anatomy. Eeturning to Scotland by way of the Low 

 Countries, he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at 

 Ley den in September 1749. 



But the career of a physician seems to have grown less 

 attractive to him as the time came on for his definitely 

 settling in life. He may have been to some extent influ- 

 enced by the success of certain chemical researches which 

 he had years before begun with a friend of kindred tastes 

 researches which had led to some valuable discoveries in 

 connection with the nature and production of sal ammo- 

 niac, and which appeared to offer a reasonable prospect of 

 commercial success. In the end he abandoned all thought 

 of practising as a medical man, and resolved to apply him- 

 self to farming. He was a man never disposed to do 

 things by halves, and having made up his mind in favour 

 of agriculture as his vocation, he determined to take ad- 

 vantage of the best practical instruction in the subject 

 then available. Accordingly in 1*752 he betook himself 

 to Norfolk, lived with a Norfolk farmer, and entered with 

 all the zest of a young man of six-and-twenty into the 

 rural sports and little adventures which, in the intervals 

 of labour, formed the amusement of his host and his 

 neighbours. 



It appears to have been during this sojourn in East 

 Anglia that Button's mind first definitely turned to 



