OBITUAKT. 279 



from the time he joined the Light Division till the British army quitted the 

 shores of the Crimea he never was absent from his duty a single day." Dr. 

 Alexander having been promoted to the rank of Local Inspector-General for 

 service during the Russian war, he remained at home just one month and 

 twenty-one days, when he was again ordered for service in Canada, as prin- 

 cipal medical officer : alter performing that duty for six months. Lord Pan- 

 mure nominated him one of the Royal Commissioners to inquire into the 

 sanitary state of the Army. He was also selected to draw up a new code of 

 regulations for the management of barracks and hospitals ; and in 1S58, he 

 was appointed Director-General of the Army Medical Department, which 

 appointment he held up to the day of his death. 

 Sir "William Charles Ross, R.A., miniature painter to the Queen. 

 Libdt.-Col. Mube, classical archaeologist. 



Gilbert M'Xab, of Jamaica, and one of the founders of the Botanical Society 

 of Edinburgh. He was the first to introduce the Victoria Megia into 

 Jamaica. 

 George Rennie, F.R.S., who, in 1836, suggested to Mr. W. Ewart the Parlia- 

 mentary Committee, which, besides inquiring into the state of the National 

 Gallery, Royal Academy, and other institutions connected with the Arts, 

 caused the immediate formation of Schools of Design. Together with the 

 late Joseph Huiue, he proposed and obtained the freest access to the public 

 monuments of the Arts in St. Paul's, the National Gallery, the British Mu- 

 seum, and other depositories of the Fine Arts. When a member of the House 

 of Commons, he first suggested, for the security of the public, that the Ser- 

 pentine should be reduced to a uniform depth, and otherwise improved. If 

 not theiuventor, he was certainly the first to suggest to Sir AV. Symonds (the 

 then Surveyor of the Navy) the now widely-recognised advantages of water- 

 tight compartments in building ships. As Governor of the Falkland Islands, 

 he raised them from a most abject condition to one of as great prospe- 

 rity as the nature of the colony would admit. — Athenaeum (abridged), No. 

 1692. 

 General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, Bart., an active promoter of 

 science, and who presided over the Royal Society of Edinburgh for twenty- 

 seven years. It is related that Sir Thomas always carried a pocket sextant- 

 chronometer and an artificial horizon, and by taking altitudes of the sun 

 kept exact time. Besides performing his Government duties he erected an 

 observatory at Paramatta, and supplied it with books, first-rate instruments, 

 and two assistants from Europe, all at his own expense. The result of his 

 observations at Paramatta, besides many valuable papers contributed to the 

 Royal Society and the Astronomical Society, comprises the" Brisbane Cata- 

 logue of 7385 Stars of the Southern Hemisphere," — a most important addi- 

 tion to astronomical knowledge ; and so highly esteemed were the results 

 that the Home Government, on the representation of scientific men, gave 

 instructions that the Paramatta Observatory should be kept up at the public 

 expense. On Sir Thomas Brisbane's return to Scotland in 1326, he founded 

 his celebrated astronomical observatory at Makerstoun ; and in 1811 ho 

 erected another observatory at the same place, for the purpose of making 

 magnetieal observations. The instruments supplied to both observatories 

 were of the best and most costly nature. The sum paid for the clocks alone, 

 in the magnetieal observatory, was 1200 guineas. The work done has been 

 excellent. From 1811 to 1816, magnetieal and meteorological observations 

 have been made every alternate hour, except in 1814 and 1315, when they 

 were made every hour, day and night. Since 1816, nine observations have 

 been made daily, 'the results have been published, and the Makerstoun 

 Observatory has justly acquired the reputation of being one of t lie best mag- 

 netieal aud meteorological establishments in Scotland. Sir Thomas was, in 

 1810, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1828 he was awarded 

 the Astronomical Society's gold medal. He was a Corresponding Member 

 of the French Institute.' The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge con- 

 ferred upon him the degree of D.C.L., and in 1832 he succeeded Sir Walter 

 Scott in the presidential chair of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and re- 

 tained thai office during the rest of his life. During his presidency he 

 founded two Gold Medals to be given annually as the reward of scientific 

 merit, one by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the other by the Society of 

 Arts. The first of the former was presented in 1859, to Sir Thomas's 



