MEMOIR OF REV. JOHN FLEMING, D.D. 673 
residence at Aberdeen he was mainly instrumental in forming the Natural His- 
tory Society, to which he contributed many valuable papers. We have said 
that FLemine, at an early period of his life—indeed, before he had accepted his 
first charge at Brassay—had expressed a strong dislike to patronage, and this dis- 
like did not decrease with his increasing years. At the Disruption he thought it 
therefore his duty to inform the patrons of King’s College that he intended to 
leave the Established Church with others of his brethren. Some circumstances 
made his occupancy of the chair of Natural Philosophy no longer agreeable, 
and he readily accepted the offer made to him of the Natural Science chair in the 
New College, Edinburgh, instituted by the broad and wise policy of Dr CHALMErs. 
This election was made at a meeting of the General Assembly at Inverness, 
in a manner very gratifying to FLeminc. Of the event he writes thus to Mrs 
Fiemine :—‘ The result of the conference (or private assembly) in my case was 
so very flattering that I cannot give you the details. I really hope that little will 
be said when brought before the House; I can stand abuse, but flattery is not 
congenial. I feel the importance of the chair in so many respects, that I wish I 
were quietly at home to give it the grave consideration which it demands.” 
FLEMING was now placed in a position much more congenial to his tastes and 
pursuits than the one he previously filled, and he soon showed that his merits as 
a teacher were in no respect inferior to his qualifications as a writer and original 
observer. He had a felicity of expression at once most logical and clear; and 
the love which he felt for all branches of natural science soon kindled the 
enthusiasm of his students. 
As a guide to his class, he published in 1846 his “Institutes of Natural 
Science,” in which he has given, in an intelligible form, short descriptions of the 
three great divisions of natural history—synthology, biology, and geology. In 
1851 FLEemine published a popular work on the “Temperature of the Seasons,” 
in which the influence of temperature on the various animals and plants is 
the most instructive portion. While engaged in the weekly excursions with 
his pupils, examining the geology around Edinburgh, he collected a valuable 
series of facts, which he communicated in several short notices to the Royal 
Society. 
These were afterwards embodied in his last work, the “ Lithology of Edin- 
burgh,” the last page of which was going through the press as its distinguished 
author died. This work has been published under the editorship of the Rev. Mr 
Duns of Torphichen, who prefaced it with an able memoir. In considering the 
various views held by previous writers on the geology of Edinburgh, FLemine 
never relaxed hold of those which he had originally published in early life; and 
in discussing the formation of trap and its tufas, never yields the point to his 
opponents of the igneous origin of these rocks. The boulder clay was the pons 
asinorum of his life: he had studied it even from his boyhood; and it was always 
