CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 3 



application of such considerations to his own case, 

 pointing out that his forefathers on the paternal side 

 were dyers for certainly seven generations, while on 

 his mother's side they were physicians, "so that it 

 may be safely concluded," he says, " that I had the 

 prospect of possessing chemical instincts by way of 

 inheritance." 



His father was interested in many directions among 

 scientific subjects. He was a good mathematician and 

 was accustomed regularly to follow the observations 

 and researches of his brother Sir Andrew Ramsay, 

 Director-General of the Geological Survey and successor 

 to Sir Roderick Murchison. These scientific tendencies 

 were shared by the whole generation on the father's 

 side ; for the other uncle, John, became a sugar planter 

 in Demerara, and his factory and laboratory were fur- 

 nished with the newest machines and scientific apparatus 

 connected with the manufacture and examination of 

 sugar. The library and apparatus belonging to this 

 Uncle John descended to the nephew. Aunt Eliza, 

 his father's sister, was an excellent botanist and collected 

 the local flora of many parts of Scotland. 



On the mother's side the grandfather of the chemist 

 was a physician in Edinburgh and the author of several 

 text-books on chemistry and anatomy for the use of 

 medical students. He died in 1835. His cousin, also 

 named Archibald Robertson, was a Doctor of Medicine 

 and Fellow of the Royal Society, and became known 

 through his medical researches. Three sons of the 



