Early History of the Society. 21 



chemist and electrician, and had he lived would doubtless 

 have gained for himself a great name in science. In those 

 days electrical science had not made the rapid advances it 

 has since done, and accordingly great interest was excited in 

 the minds of the members, by the brilliant experiments which 

 Kemp week after week demonstrated before the Society. All 

 of his discoveries w^ere given to us before being published to 

 the world. The Society most properly awarded to him a 

 medal for his services to it, and to science generally. When 

 Simpson joined the Society, he had just newly arrived from 

 the country. His cheeks were ruddy with health, and his 

 appearance rustic in the extreme, in comparison with the 

 dandy medicos, who in those days monopolised the most 

 prominent places in the Society. He was a rough diamond, 

 which was afterwards to be polished and scintillate brightly 

 in the world of science. His eye, always a marked feature in 

 Sir James' face, was distinguished by that happy intelligent 

 merry sparkle so noted in after-years. Edward Forbes was, 

 as has been truly said, a " born naturalist," and early showed 

 signs of his future greatness. The Eoyal Physical was his 

 stronghold, and as soon as he became a member, he took an 

 active part in the business of the Society, and showed himself 

 in no way backward to impart his stores of knowledge. This 

 was always done in a pleasant agreeable fashion, though in 

 that peculiar drawling manner, so characteristic of the after- 

 wards famous naturalist. One of the first papers he read to 

 the Society, was on some shells from the Nor' Loch, now the 

 site of the Princes Street Gardens, but at that time a vile, 

 fetid swamp. When more than twenty years afterwards, he 

 returned to Edinburgh, he again renewed his interest in the 

 Society, and had not death cut him short, would doubtless 

 have been our foremost member as of old. The leadinsr 

 members of the Society during that period seem from the 

 minute-book to have been — James Chapman, president, D. 

 Macaskell, J. Murray, David Grieve, Edward Forbes, James 

 Haig, William Stanger, Ptobert J. Hay Cunningham, John W. 

 Hay, and William Dick. Forbes, with Mr Grieve, who was in 

 1834 Secretary and unpaid Law Agent of the Society, together 

 with William Oliphant, the late Professor Dick, the late 



