APPENDIX. 



ESTIMATE BY DK. J. H. GLADSTONE. 



IN endeavouring to form an estimate of Dr. George Wilson as 

 a scientific man, it is necessary to remember that he passed 

 through the ordinary curriculum of a medical student, then 

 devoted himself more especially to chemistry and the allied 

 natural sciences, and afterwards had his attention particularly 

 directed to the useful arts as Professor of Technology. It should 

 be also borne in mind that he was a literary as well as a 

 scientific man, and that he spent a large portion of his time as a 

 public teacher. I shall therefore, for the sake of convenience 

 and greater clearness, regard him from four different points of 

 view, as an original investigator ; as a technologist ; as a 

 scientific historian or biographer; and as a teacher or expounder. 



AS AN ORIGINAL INVESTIGATOR. 



Though it is not as an investigator that Dr. Wilson acquired 

 his principal fame, yet his researches were by no means few in 

 number or limited in range. He added to our store of know- 

 ledge in chemistry, in physiology, and in natural philosophy ; 

 but not so much by actual discoveries as by elucidating points 

 that were previously involved in obscurity. While some of his 

 fellow-inquirers followed up any hint that Nature might give, 

 and formed their crude theories, he was generally content to 

 expound and illustrate their views, and to devise, if possible, 

 some crucial experiment that would decide between rival hypo- 

 theses. And if the inquiry bore in any way on the welfare of 

 his fellow-men, he felt it to possess a greater claim on his atten- 

 tion. As he published much, with little leisure for quiet 

 research, he also frequently suggested thoughts and processes 



