252 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
glad to entrust the conduct of its affairs to him as permanent 
Secretary. 
No doubt the removal from their posts within so short a 
time of two admirable secretaries—Mr Robert Gray, by 
death in 1887; Mr William Evans, by resignation in 1893— 
constituted severe losses to the Society, but in Mr Gunn we 
had chosen a man eminently fitted to make good these 
losses. The habits of exactitude which his work in Glasgow 
had developed, his experience in the Challenger Office, 
joined to an instinctive painstaking tendency, exactly suited 
him for undertaking the duties of secretary from the business 
point of view, while his scientific leanings, along with his 
remarkably amiable disposition, secured him the hearty 
co-operation of many friends in providing material for the 
work of the Society. 
From his boyhood he displayed a decided scientific bent 
of mind, the branches of knowledge which specially attracted 
him being history, archeology, and geography, though at the 
same time he had wide sympathies as regards all the subjects 
which ordinarily come before us under the designation 
of Natural History? But though, as a Society, we lament 
the loss of a thorough man of business, who devoted himself 
in the most zealous and painstaking manner to the good 
of the Society, it is those who had the pleasure of knowing 
him personally who feel that loss most keenly. Utterly 
unselfish, as well as utterly unassuming, he seemed to 
consider working for the benefit of others to be the great 
object of his life, and those who enjoyed his friendship 
know well how sincerely devoted and faithful a friend 
he was in every case. . They also know well the geniality 
of manner which shed a bright ray of happiness over an 
hour or two spent in his company, and the charm of his 
conversation, enlivened by a profusion of anecdote and 
supported by a groundwork of genuine kindly disposition 
and sound common sense. He was indeed what few of 
us can boast of being, a “man of many friends and no 
enemies.” 
In the month of March of last year, after the intense 
cold of January and February had given way, the country 
