386 



NA rURE 



[Feb. 2 1, li 



Simpson, Christison, &c., which maintained the reputa- 

 tion and added lustre to the fame and prestige of the 

 Medical School in our great northern University during 

 the middle decades of this century; one, too, of that band 

 of working British botanists of the first half of the century 

 whicli counted amongst its members the Hookers, 

 Munby, Carmichael, Greville, Walker Arnott, Babington, 

 Parncll, Prior, the Macnabs, &c , the majority of whom 

 have now left us ; and where are their successors? By 

 his death a figure — in later years picturesque with grey 

 locks and patriarchal beard — familiar all over Scotland, 

 and where scientific men do congregate, has been re- 

 moved. Few men were more universally esteemed and 

 popular, and few quit their sphere of active and busy life 

 leaving behind them more pleasant reminiscences than 

 he whose decease we have recorded. Compelled by fail- 

 ing health to retire about five years ago from public life, 

 his powers since then gradually weakened, until on the 

 I ith inst. he quietly breathed his last. 



John Hutton Balfour was born in Edinburgh on 

 September 15, 1S08. Related, as his name indicates, to 

 James Hutton, the famous author of " The Theory of the 

 Earth," he possessed much of the enthusiasm and fire 

 which characterised his ancestor. His early education 

 was completed at the High School of Edinburgh, then 

 at the zenith of its reputation, under Pillans and 

 Carson, and he subsequently studied in the Universi- 

 ties of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, in the former of 

 which he graduated in Arts and Medicine. His first 

 intention appears to have been to enter the Church, 

 and to this aim his studies were directed ; but he after- 

 wards abandoned this purpose and commenced to practise 

 medicine in Edinburgh, having spent some preparatory 

 time in Continental schools, and having become a Fellow 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. During 

 his early years he was devoted to botany, and his taste 

 received a great stimulus by the teaching and example of 

 Graham, then Professor of Botany in the University of 

 Edinburgh. Whilst engaged in the active work of his 

 profession, he found time to foster his bent and love for 

 nature, and gathered around him many of those who, like 

 himself, were keen students of natural science, and thus 

 was formed the nucleus of the Botanical Society of Edin- 

 burgh, of which he was, in 1836, the founder — a society 

 which has done much to promote the study of botany in 

 Scotland, and in which, throughout his whole life, he was 

 a guiding spirit. In 1840 Balfour found time amidst his 

 medical duties to commence lecturing on botany in Edin- 

 burgh, and his ability as a lecturer was at once proved by 

 the large numbers attracted to his classes. But it was not 

 until 1842, when he was appointed to the Chair of Botany 

 in the University of Glasgow, vacated by the translation 

 of Sir William Hooker to Kew, that he was able to give 

 up medicine, and devote himself solely to botany. After 

 four years in Glasgow, the death of Prof. Graham made 

 an opening in the East of Scotland, and Balfour was 

 elected Professor of Botany in the University of Edin- 

 burgh, shortly thereafter obtaining the appointments of 

 Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden and Queen's 

 Botanist for Scotland. Subsequently he undertook the 

 duties of Dean of the Medical Faculty in the University, 

 and his energy on behalf of the Royal Society of Ediii- 

 burgh led to his appointment as Secretary. From all 

 these positions he retired in 1S79, when a fitting tribute 

 to the value of his services was paid by the presentation 

 of his portrait, and he was then elected Assessor in the 

 University Court for the General Council, and each of 

 the three Universities with which he had been connected 

 conferred on him the degree of LL.D. For many years 

 he was an F.R.S., and also a member of a vast number of 

 British and foreign scientific societies. 



As a botanical investigator Balfour was a systematist, 

 belonging to that school which is now, by a species of 

 reaction, often held in contempt by those within whose 



reach the modern developments of physics and chemistry 

 have placed methods of morphological and physiological 

 research denied their predecessors. He had an acute 

 perception of resemblances and a keen eye for a species. 

 But it is not upon his original investigations that Balfour's 

 reputation rests ; his work of that character was not ex- 

 tensive, for the time which might have been devoted to it 

 was fully occupied by his official duties as Dean of the 

 Medical Faculty and Secretary of the Royal Society, and 

 he was one of those who sacrificed scientific laurels for 

 the good of the institutions he served. But as a teacher 

 his fame was world-wide, and as a great teacher he will 

 be remembered. He had in a remarkable degree the 

 power of lucid exposition, and the inestimable qualifica- 

 tion of infusing in his pupils the enthusiasm which 

 possessed himself Painstaking and conscientious in his 

 work, no trouble was too great for him if it could con- 

 tribute to the better comprehension by his students of the 

 subject taught, and the wealth of illustration and the 

 earnestness of manner which clothed his lectures im- 

 pressed all who heard him. Though the natural cast of 

 his own mind made taxonomy his favourite branch of 

 botany, yet in his teaching, especially in his earlier years, 

 this was given no undue prominence ; his success, indeed, 

 was in great part due to the way in which all branches of 

 the science were handled, and he had the credit of being 

 the first to introduce in Edinburgh classes for practical 

 instruction in the use of the microscope. His text-books 

 reflect the character of his teaching, and " if," as a critic 

 remarked on their first appearance, "we recall the dry 

 and dictionary-like manuals to which students were forced 

 to have recourse in our young days — as inviting as so 

 many pages of Johnson's Dictionary — we can but envy 

 their successors." In later years his books and he himself 

 fell behind — and who does not ? — in the rapid march of 

 science ; but any one examining his books cannot fail to 

 recognise how thoroughly they represent the state of 

 science at their date of publication, and to appreciate the 

 industry and the skill with which the author seems to have 

 exhausted every source of information. 



Another feature of Balfour's teaching was the " excur- 

 sion." Amongst the 8000 students whom it was his pride 

 to have passed through his classes will be many to whom 

 the announcement of his death will recall pleasant recol- 

 lections of these outings on hill and in glen ; how, as they 

 ncared the habitat of some rare Alpine herb, the wiry and 

 energetic Professor — "W'oody Fibre' as they called him 

 — would outstrip all in his eagerness to secure it ; or 

 how, toiling up some long barren slope, his constant flow 

 of jokes and puns w-ould enliven and rouse their flagging 

 spirits. In these rambles, to which many will look back 

 as not only healthful and recreative, but as giving them 

 their first lessons in accurate observation of nature, 

 Balfour visited almost every part of Scotland, ascended 

 every important peak, and gathered every rarity in the 

 flora. No one knew Scotland and its plants better. In 

 this way Balfour became associated with his students in 

 a way no other Professor did, and his position as Dean 

 of the Medical Faculty brought him still more in contact 

 with them. The Rhadamanthus of the e.xamination-hall 

 he enjoyed a unique popularity, and the esteem with which 

 old pupils regarded him may be traced to the intimate 

 relationships thus established, to the way he identified 

 himself with and interested himself in them and showed 

 himself always anxious to merge the professor in the 

 friend. In all he did Balfour was methodical, and his 

 powers of organisation and administration found exercise 

 in the management of the Royal Botanic Gardens, which, 

 under his direction and with the Macnabs — father and 

 son — as curators, was greatly increased in extent, pro- 

 vided with a magnificent palm-house and other plant- 

 houses, as well as with a botanical museum and improved 

 teaching accommodation, and made one of the finest in 

 the country. The latest addition to the garden — the 



