46 



taken, and the cargo sold by auction at Leith, The minerals 

 attracted but little general notice, in part, I have been informed, 

 from their being packed in moss and sea-weed, and perhaps also 

 from the very circumstance of many of the species being un- 

 known. Mr. Allan purchased nearly the whole collection, which 

 upon examination proved to contain a great number of new and 

 rare substances of the highest mineralogical interest, cryolite, so- 

 dalite, allanile, with mixed groups of striking variety and novelty; 

 and all in such abundance that most of the cabinets of England 

 (when collectors, if not more numerous, were at least more active 

 than I fear they are at present,) were supplied from this source. 

 Mr. Giesecke himself accidentally arrived at Leith in 1813, not long 

 after Mr. Allan had published an account of his purchases, and with 

 great generosity contributed to the improved catalogues and de- 

 scriptions of specimens which subsequently appeared. He was soon 

 after appointed Professor of Mineralogy to the Royal Dublin So- 

 ciety, and went to reside in Ireland, where he spent the remainder 

 of his life. About this period also he was honoured with an Order 

 of Knighthood by the King of Denmark ; but having now passed his 

 fiftieth year, his health vi^as broken, and much of the energy lost 

 which distinguished his early life. He lived to the age of 72, and 

 died at Dublin in March 1833. Sir Charles Gieseck^ meditated, 

 after his return from Greenland, an extensive work upon that coun- 

 try; he published a brief account of it in Dr. Brewster's Encyclo- 

 paedia, but the larger work was deferred till the voyages of Ross 

 and Parry had deprived the subject of the interest of novelty. 

 His meteorological observations appeared in the Edinburgh Philo- 

 sophical Journal for 1818; and he gave to Mr. Scoresby, for his work 

 on the Greenland Coast, the use of his maps and other materials. 

 The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for 1822, contains an ac- 

 count of his discovery of the geological situation of Cryolite. His 

 only publications on the mineralogy of Ireland are, I believe, a brief 

 notice of the geological situation of Beryl in the county of Down*, 

 and an account of an excursion to the counties of Galway and 

 Mayof . 



Mr. Alexander Nimmo was a civil engineer of high reputation. 

 He was born in Fifeshire in 1783, and at a very early age showed 

 a strong propensity to physical and mathematical inquiry. One of 

 his first public employments was a survey of some of the bogs in 

 Ireland, on which he delivered a report to the Commissioners in 

 1811, containing some general observations on the geological cha- 

 racter of part of Roscommon, Kerry, Cork and Galway. He was 

 afterwards engaged in various works of great importance, prin- 

 cipally in Ireland. He was the author of several articles in Brew- 



* Annals of Philosophy, 1825. New Series, vol. x. pp. 74 & 75 ; repub- 

 lished from the Dublin Philosophical Journal. 



f Annals of Philosophy, 1826; republished from the Dublin Philoso- 

 phical Journal, 



