g^ PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



ALAN MACDOUGALL. 



Alan Macdougall, F.R.S.E., M. Can. Soc. C.E., M. Inst. C.E., for ten years 

 Secretary of the Canadian Institute, died on 23rd April, 1897, at Exmouth, Devon- 

 shire, England, after a lingering illness. For a long time his health had been failing, 

 and early in the summer of 1896 he went to Scotland in the hope that change of 

 scene and a visit to his native land would lead to his recovery. But the hopes of 

 his family and friends were to be disappointed, and he died at the comparatively 

 early age of fifty-five. His services to the Institute as Secretary for ten years were 

 of inestimable value, and numerous papers read by him on subjects more or less 

 connected with his own profession of engineering bear testimony to his scientific 

 zeal arid diligence. He was son of the late Col. Macdougall, of Edinburgh, Scot- 

 land, and received his education in that city. In 1859 he entered the service of the 

 North British Railway Company, and continued with that company till 1868, when 

 he came to Canada, and became connected with the Toronto, Grey and Bruce 

 Railway, then in course of construction, after which he was employed for about 

 four years in some important lake and river improvements by the Department of 

 Public Works of the Dominion. From 1877 to 1882 he was again in the employ 

 of the North British Railway Company, but in the latter year he returned to 

 Canada, and for a season was a divisional engineer on the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway in Manitoba, after which he engaged in private practice in Toronto until. 

 in 1887, he was made assistant city engineer. As such he conducted some inter- 

 esting and, valuable experiments to determine the velocity and direction of the 

 currents in Lake Ontario, and made surveys in connection with the water supply 

 of the city. He did not long retain his connection with the city service, and after 

 his resignation he devoted his attention chiefly to sanitary science, being consulted 

 as a sanitary engineer by many municipalities all over Canada, from St. John's, 

 Newfoundland, to Victoria, British Columbia. To his enthusiastic devotion to 

 civil engineering is very largely due the formation, in 1887, of the Canadian 

 Society of Civil Engineers, and to the last he bent every energy to the elevation 

 of the status of his profession in Canada. He was an ardent Scot, and took much 

 interest in the work of the St. Andrew's Society, of which society he was elected 

 Secretary for the year 1896 ; but, unfortunately, his failing health coinpelled him 

 to resign after a few months' tenure of the office. He was also a member of the 

 Gaelic Society. He was genial and kindly in bis intercourse with his fellow-men, 

 and will be long held in grateful remembrance by those who were associated with 

 him on the Council Board of the Canadian Institute. 



