BLACK. 3 



Cullen in the chair of anatomy and chemistry at Glas- 

 gow, and he continued to teach there for ten years, 

 when he was appointed to the chemistry professorship 

 at Edinburgh. He then lectured for thirty years to 

 numerous classes, and retiring in 1796 lived till 1799, 

 and died on the 26th of November in that year. His 

 health never was robust ; it was indeed precarious at 

 all times from a weakness in the bronchia and chest, 

 but he prolonged life by a system of the strictest absti- 

 nence, frequently subsisting for days together on water- 

 gruel and diluted milk. He never was married ; but 

 he cherished with unvarying affection his near relatives, 

 who well deserved his care. His favourite niece, Miss 

 Burnet, a person of great sense and amiable temper, 

 was married to his friend and second cousin, Professor 

 Ferguson, the historian and moral philosopher. Dr. 

 Black lived in a select circle of friends, the most illus- 

 trious men of the times in science and in letters, Watt, 

 Button, .Hume, Robertson, Smith, and afterwards with 

 the succeeding generation of Scottish worthies, Robi- 

 son, Playfair, Stewart. Delighting to commune, to 

 speculate, and to investigate with them, he was care- 

 less of the fame which however he could not but be 

 sensible his labours must achieve. He was extremely 

 averse to publication, contemning the impatience with 

 which so many men of science hurry to the press, often 

 while their speculations are crude, and their inquiries 

 not finished. Nor could the reason often urged in 

 defence of this find much favour with one who seemed 

 never to regard the being anticipated by his fellow- 

 labourers as any very serious evil, so the progress of 

 science was secured. Except two papers, one in the 

 'London Philosophical Transactions' for 1775 on the 

 freezing of boiled water ; the other, in the second vol- 

 ume of the ' Edinburgh Transactions,' on the Iceland 

 hot springs ; he never published any work after that 

 of which we are now to speak, in 1755, and which, 

 but for the accidental occasion that gave rise to it, 



