XXXIV PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Birmingham, he returned to his own country, and, without neglecting 

 his commercial career, he took a gratuitous part in many public 

 offices, thus rendering important services to his native town during 

 more than half a century. Science had always for him lively attrac- 

 tions, and, notwithstanding his public duties, he successfully cultivated 

 several sciences — the theory and practice of agriculture, archaeology, 

 mathematics, and especially meteorology and geology, in both of 

 which he made important observations. 



The geological description of the neighbourhood of Puy, in Velay, 

 which he published in 1823, made known to geologists points of the 

 highest interest in the history of volcanic phenomena, so character- 

 istic of that part of France. A number of facts, all new at the time, 

 were then observed by him, with rare penetration, and described with 

 a clearness, precision, and elegance which make his work still 

 classical in geology. He was also the author of a memoir on the 

 fossil bones of Saint-Privat-d'Allier and the basaltic district in which 

 they were found, published in 1829 in the ' Annals of the Agri- 

 cultural Society of Puy ' and in Brewster's * Journal of Science/ 

 At the time of his death he was engaged upon a new edition of the 

 former work. 



His power of observation was not less manifest in his meteorological 

 studies. During a long series of years he observed the currents of 

 wind both on the surface of the earth and in the region of the clouds, 

 and he detected in their respective directions a constant relation 

 which he entitled the law of interversion. 



Thus, by the force of native genius alone, Bertrand de Doue rose to 

 distinction, and, among other honours, became President of the 

 Society of Agriculture, Sciences, Arts, and Commerce of Puy. In 

 1828 he was elected a Foreign Member of this Society. He was as 

 much distinguished by the excellence of his heart as of his head, and 

 he won the affections of all who knew him by his gentleness and 

 goodness. He died last year, aged eighty-six. 



Dr. Thomas Stewart Traill was born on the 29th of October, 

 1781, at Kirkwall, in Orkney, of which place his father was minister. 

 He graduated in Medicine in the University of Edinburgh ; and in 

 1832 he was appointed to the Chair of Medical Jurisprudence, which 

 he filled until his death. He contributed a number of mineralogical 

 and other memoirs to the ' Transactions ' and ' Proceedings ' of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, — and two to this Society, published in 

 our ' Transactions,' the first entitled " Some Observations on the 

 Salt-mines of Cardona made during a Tour in Spain in the Summer 

 of 1814," the second, " On Magnetic Iron-sand mixed with much 

 Iserine, found at Seacome Eerry, in Cheshire." He was one of the 

 oldest Eellows of our Society, having been elected in 1813. He 

 continued his lectures to within twelve days of his death, and died at 

 the age of eighty- one. 



By the death of the Marquis of Breadalbane the sciences of 

 mineralogy and geology have lost a true friend. Possessed of very 



