a2 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
John Murray, although a typical Scot in all his ways, was — 
born in Canada—at Coburg, Ontario, on March 8rd, 1841. But 
he was of Scottish descent, and returned in early life to maternal 
relatives in Scotland to complete his education. The lives of 
our three pioneers just occupied a century (1815 to 1914), and 
to some extent overlapped. Forbes was only fifteen years senior 
to Wyville Thomson, and Thomson eleven years senior to Murray. 
While John Murray was still a school-boy in Upper Canada, 
Forbes was running his brief meteoric career as Professor in 
Edinburgh, and Wyville Thomson was a young lecturer on the 
Natural Sciences in Ireland. Curiously enough all three went 
through unusually extended courses as students of Medicine 
and Science at the University of Edinburgh, and not one of 
them took a degree. Forbes was a genius who neglected his 
work and frankly “funked”’ his examinations when the time 
came. In Thomson’s case ill-health, fortunately for Science, 
stopped his proposed career in Medicine ; while Murray despised 
examinations and degrees and probably never proposed to 
take them. He studied a subject because he wanted to know 
it, and in that spirit he ranged widely over the Faculties of 
his University. When I was a student and young graduate 
I used to hear him denounce in vigorous language all examina- 
tions and other formal tests of knowledge, and yet, late in life 
there was probably no man of his time who had so many 
honorary degrees and titles conferred upon him by the Univer- 
sities and learned Academies of Europe and America. 
After returning to Scotland as a boy in the teens, he lived 
‘for some time with a grandfather at Bridge of Allan, and 
attended the High School at Stirlmg. During this time he 
seems to have been most interested in the physical sciences, 
and especially electricity. He established some electrical 
apparatus at his home, and in an address to his old school, 
in 1899, he gives an amusing account of some of the results 
of his experiments with a large induction coil, such as the 
