Biographical Account of the late Dr James Hutton, 

 F. R. S. Edin. 



[Read by Mr Playfair, lotb January 1803.] 

 — -"K 



DR JAMES HUTTON was the fon of Mr William Hut- 

 ton, merchant in Edinburgh, and was born in that city 

 on the 3d of June 1726. His father, a man highly refpecled 

 for his good fenfe and integrity, and who for fome years held 

 the office of City Treafurer, died while James was very young. 

 The care of her fon's education devolved of courfe on Mrs 

 HuttoN, who appears to have been well qualified for difcharging 

 this double portion of parental duty. She refolved to bellow 

 on him a liberal education, and fent him firft to the High 

 School of Edinburgh, and afterwards to the Univerfity, where 

 he entered as a ftudent of humanity in November 1 740. 



Of the mafters under whom he fludied there, Maclaurin 

 was by far the mofl eminent, and Dr Hutton, though he had 

 cultivated the mathematical fciences lefs than any other, never 

 mentioned the lectures of that celebrated ProfefTor but in terms 

 of high admiration. 



He ufed alfo to acknowledge his obligations to ProfefTor Ste- 

 venson's Prelections on Logic ; not fo much, however, for ha- 

 ving made him a logician as a chemift. The fact that gold is 

 diffolved in aqua regia, and that two acids which can each of 



Vol. V.~ P. III. F them 



