82 Canadian Record of Science. 
Murray was a man of medium height, rather fair com- 
plexioned, with blue eyes and flaxen beard. He was well 
built and had powerful muscles until he was overtaken hy 
a paralytic stroke previous to 1856, after which he refrained 
from performing the feats of strength in which he had 
formerly delighted. The portrait accompanying the present 
sketch is from a photograph taken at Crieff in 1867. 
He was noted as an ardent sportsman and lover of dogs, 
guns aud fishing-rods. But he confined himself to the 
lines he could follow in a wild country, and neglected most 
of the sports of civilized regions, such as horse-racing, 
cricket, etc. But when Murray was a young man, before 
public sentiment became so refined as it is at the present 
day, he did not deny having a weakness for the “manly 
art” and some other sports which are now tabooed in 
“society.” 
The animals he killed during his surveys and explorations 
in the backwoods always formed a welcome addition to the 
diet of salt pork, and often it constituted the only food 
in camp. He was an excellent shot with both rifle and 
gun, and many a bear and deer fell under his aim, to say 
nothing of the multitudes of ducks, grouse, snipe, woodcock 
and other wild fowl. He had a great fondness for fly- 
fishing, which he considered “the grandest sport in the 
world,” and he would go into raptures over the capture 
of an extra big trout. 
To show how confident he felt of his skill as a marksman 
the following anecdote may be related :—On one occasion 
when at the Sault Ste. Marie several land surveyors arrived 
on their way into the back country where they were going 
to run base lines and lay out townships. Murray had 
explained to them the use of the Rochon micrometer 
telescope, with which he measured most of his distances, 
when one or two of the surveyors expressed a wish to see 
a practical demonstration of the working of the instrument. 
For this purpose they sent one of their voyageurs, a French- 
man, to take Mr. Murray’s disc-staff to the small island op- 
posite Capt. Wilson’s house, where he was to hold it erect at 
Pas. 
