The late Professor Algernon Freire-Marreeo. 69 



gations of the Titinost importance not only as to certain points 

 connected with, the great industries of the district, but often also 

 as to judicial cases involving questions of life and death. As 

 early as 1859, Dr. Eichardson, who till his death held the position 

 of Eeader in Chemistry in the University of Durham, appointed 

 Mr Marreco to act as his deputy in that office, as well as in those 

 of Lecturer in Chemistry and Demonstrator in Practical Chemis- 

 try in the Newcastle College of Medicine. In time Mr Marreco 

 entered into partnership with Dr. Eichardson, and at the death 

 of the latter, in 1867, was formally appointed to fill the posts of 

 ivrhich he had been de facto the holder for more than eight years. 



Between the years 1859 and 1871, there was probably no 

 branch of applied chemistry in which Mr Marreco was not con- 

 sulted, and he was — had money-making been his object — in a 

 fair way to obtain the largest and most lucrative practice as a 

 consulting analyst in the North of England. But in the last- 

 named year, 1871, the University of Durham College of Science 

 was founded, and Mr Marreco, throwing business to the winds, 

 became a candidate for, and obtained against an honourable 

 array of well-known chemists, the Chair of Chemistry in that 

 Institution. From that moment Professor Freire-Marreco's true 

 life-work may be said to have begun. He had the most exalted 

 views as to the aims and objects of the great science colleges of 

 which that at Newcastle was one of the first, and to the last day 

 of his life he acted unflinchingly up to his ideal. A professor, 

 he thought, should give himself up entirely to his teaching, and 

 accordingly from the day of his election to the new Professorship 

 he never accepted remuneration for any work unconnected with 

 the College curriculum. Eightly or wrongly, he held that the 

 whole time of a professor belonged to his College. Even time 

 spent in original work he regarded as, to some extent, stolen 

 time which could be better employed in the services of his post. 

 To this view of his, consistently held to the end, must be ascribed 

 the limited number of published records of researches which Pro- 

 fessor Marreco has left behind him. Nevertheless among those 

 papers which he did consent to write, are some of the highest 

 value, such, for instance, as those in which are detailed the 

 results of an elaborate series of experiments conducted by him, 

 to investigate the influence of coal-dust on colliery explosions. 



But if Professor Marreco did not print much, he did much to 

 redeem the country from the charge of being forced to go to Ger- 



