GEORGE A. WALKER-ARNOTT. 1 



George A. Walker-Arnott, Professor of Botany in the 

 University at Glasgow, died on the 17th of June last, in 

 the seventieth year of his age. He was born in Edinburgh, 

 February 6, 1799, educated at the celebrated high school of 

 that city, and at the university, where he took high rank as a 

 scholar, especially in the mathematics, — publishing two 

 papers in Tilloch's " Philosophical Magazine " in 1817 and 

 1818, while yet a student in arts, — and then, turning to law 

 studies, he was called to the bar as a member of the faculty of 

 advocates in the year 1821. He hardly entered, however, upon 

 the duties of his profession, his taste for natural history hav- 

 ing been early developed under the lectures of Professor Jame- 

 son and of Mr. Stewart, — the latter a well-known teacher of 

 botany at that time, and his patrimonial estate of Arlary in 

 Kinros-shire suffering for his support, so that he could devote 

 himself to botany, as he did, with unsurpassed ardor and 

 success. His earliest botanical paper, upon some Brazilian 

 Mosses, was written in France, and published in a journal 

 at Paris in 1823. In 1826 and 1827 he contributed to the 

 " Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal " a lively narrative 

 of a botanical tour to the south of France and the Pyrenees. 

 He resided for some time at Montpellier and in Paris, examin- 

 ing the principal herbaria there, also that of De Candolle 

 at Geneva, and in 1828 the herbaria at St. Petersburg. In 

 1831 he married and established himself with his collections 

 at Arlary, where he resided until, in 1845, he accepted the 

 professorship of botany in the University of Glasgow. It was 

 during these fourteen years that the vast amount of scientific 

 work he was able to accomplish was mainly done. He wrote 

 the article " Botany " in the seventh edition of the " Encyclo- 



1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xlvii. 140. (1869.) 



