William Stevenson. By Professor Duns. 291 



" Eoyal Institution, 

 My Dear Sir, 8 Mar. 1863. 



I am very much obliged by your kind note and shall be 

 most grateful for any data you can favour me with in relation to atmos- 

 pheric magnetism. The observations about the Cirri are exceedingly 

 interesting, and if at your leisure you devote me a few minutes I shall 

 be very thankful. Captn. Sabine was much struck by your note to me 

 (the first one) and asked me to allow it to be read at the Eoyal Society 

 next Thursday Evening, and I have sent it to him for that purpose. 

 Your Very Obliged Servt., 



M. FABADAY. 

 24 May 1860. 

 " Dear Sir, 1 Parliament St. S.W. " 



I thank you sincerely for the valuable and very inter- 

 esting Paper which you so kindly sent to me on the 22nd. I have read 

 it carefully, and shall studi/ it. In muck your researches and ideas agree 

 with mine — which encourages me not a little. During the last six 

 months I have been urging Telegraph for Storms, and am now in daily 

 expectation of Government authority to begin. Believe me, 



Your's truly, 



EOBT. FITZEOY. 

 Can you spare me another copy for Dr. Lloyd of Dublin ?" 

 In 1854 we find Mr Stevenson occupied with relations between 

 "Agriculture and Meteorology," and, in a correspondence with 

 Sir J. S. Forbes of Fettercairn, stating aspects of interest between 

 these branches which have subsequently been fully recognised. 



There is proof that in the heart of his meteorological studies 

 Mr Stevenson was giving equal, if not more, attention to Geology, 

 and was, like a true observer, trying to make out the strati- 

 graphical and palsecntological features of his own neighbourhood. 

 The publication in the Witness Newspaper, 1840, of Hugh 

 Miller's graphic and fascinating papers on the Old Eed Sand- 

 stone, first gave Mr Stevenson the opportunity to make known 

 his own work in this formation. Miller's cordially appreciative 

 notice of this is well known. But not the least important fruit 

 of Stevenson's introduction to him was a correspondence begun 

 in 1840 and continued till 1852. I have read Miller's notes with 

 unusual interest and pleasure. One of these and a brief extract 

 from another may be given : — 

 " My dear Sir, 



Many, many thanks for your parcel of fossils ; I 

 trust we shall by and by know something of the Old Eed. You will 

 excuse me the scanty bit of paper I employ when I tell you that all my 

 spare minutes, and they are by no means numerous, are engaged with my 

 little work on this formation. I trust in a month or six weeks to have 



