298 SIR WILLIAM KAMSAY 



serious extent, as so many of the younger men did, with 

 questions of reform which were then troubling the 

 Scottish universities. Later in life his interests widened 

 and he occupied himself, as already related, with many 

 questions, especially such as related to education. His 

 taste in books was always a catholic one. Scott was a 

 great favourite, and during his last illness he had many 

 of the Waverley Novels read to him over again. 



His taste for languages led him to interest himself in 

 his later years in an attempt to devise a new universal 

 language, written but unspoken, utilising the funda- 

 mental idea of hieroglyphics, a sort of modern Chinese. 

 A rough figure represented a man, an arrow indicated 

 the man's intention to do something indicated by 

 another figure, the direction of the arrow was used to 

 suggest the future or the past tense of the action. Such 

 a symbolism was expected to convey ideas to the stranger, 

 which he would express in his own language, be it 

 English, French or Arabic. A friend writes a propos : 

 " One night I found him studying Chinese and Egyptian 

 grammar ! He said Egyptian was very easy, but he 

 confessed that Chinese was rather stiff. He was making 

 preliminary studies for his philosophical universal lan- 

 guage in this way." 



The absorbing interest of his life was scientific research. 

 With what ardour, interest, patience and skill he followed 

 the path of discovery has been sufficiently shown in 

 what has gone before. This led quite naturally to an 

 acquaintance with a very large number of men of science, 



