20 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



the time the writer of these memoranda entered the Society. 

 He was much impressed wdth the liveliness and energy, not to 

 say eloquence, of the debates, and although, as a youth, he 

 relished this much, he is bound to admit that science was often 

 forgotten in the struggle for victory, and much valuable time 

 wasted. There w^ere two parties, generally pitted against each 

 other about this period — the one represented by Dr John 

 Murray, Lecturer on Chemistry, the other by Henry Hulme 

 Cheek. These two, with their respective backers, were gene- 

 rally opposed to each other, irrespective of the merits of the 

 question at issue. In fact one would have supposed that 

 they were disputing for fun, rather than to arrive at the truth, 

 because jokes, repartees, and sarcasms were unsparingly, and 

 to all appearances irrelevantly, bandied about. In fact at that 

 time the Eoyal Physical was simply a debating Society. 

 The writer has a distinct recollection of both Murray and 

 Cheek. They generally took up positions facing each other 

 at the opposite ends of the room, and standing with their 

 backs to the fire. Here they would unintermittingly assail 

 each other, talking against time, and often against sense. 

 This, however, more frequently took place during the discus- 

 sion of private business, which was often so prolonged as to 

 cause occasionally visitors to retire from the waiting before 

 the public business commenced. This sort of thing was 

 found to be a nuisance, and was ultimately put dow^n before 

 the Society left its old haU. Cheek, notwithstanding the 

 defects hinted at, was a man of considerable ability, and, in 

 conjunction with William Ainsworth, edited in 1830 the 

 ' Edinburgh Journal of Science,' a monthly periodical, which, 

 however, did not live beyond the year. In this journal will 

 be found many of the papers read before the Society, and 

 which are a very fair sample of the dissertations and notices 

 of this period." Mr Cheek afterwards received a medal from 

 the Society. The rest of Mr Grieve's letter was occupied by 

 a description of some of the more prominent members of the 

 Society at that period, such as Kenneth Kemp, a rising 

 chemist (who received one of the Society's medals), James 

 Y. Simpson, who joined in 1829, Edward Forbes, who joined 

 in 1831, and others. Kenneth Kemp was an accomplished 



