32 Biographical Memow of 
and who have gone from his class-room imbued with an 
ardent love for those sciences in which he had been their in- 
structor. 
MUSEUM. 
The first indication we have of a museum was made by Sir 
Andrew Balfour, who died in 1694, in the 63d year of his ¢ age, 
and bequeathed his extensive collection to the University pe 
Edinburgh. The Rey. Dr John Walker, Professor of Natural _ 
History in the University of Edinburgh, in speaking | of 
Balfour’s Museum, states that it was deposited i in the fe 
of the College, which was afterwards the Library. It | 
melancholy to relate the fate of this Museum, that that had cost 
Balfour forty years’ labour, and was at the time patient to ‘ 
be the finest collection in Europe. It lay for many years in | 
the University Hall, useless and neglected, some par rts O 
crumbling into dust and inevitable decay, and other 
stracted ; yet, even after the year 1750, it still cor 
considerable collection. Soon after that ae it w 
dilapidated, and at length Assn ‘Sinieeth Fete = 
In ane year 1782, out of its ruins and rubbish, Dr Ww ker 
placed them in the Collexs Museum, to remain there as 
precious relics of the first naturalist, andar 
and greatest men ofhistime. == = == —<‘“‘ ; 3 CO” 
But the Doctor’s anticipations were not destined to be 
realized. He had collected for the use of his class a number — 
of specimens, which he added to the pitiful remains of Bal- © 
four, but he had not the generosity to bestow them onthe 
public, or perhaps did not consider them worth a bequest ; % 
and at his death, the Museum, and the remains he seemed ’ 
so eager to preserve, underwent a second spoliation, ‘and the — 
miserable fragments left were of little benefit to Jameson, 
his more eminent successor, who deposited in the Museum 
the whole of his own valuable private collection, and may 
now be considered the founder, as well as the builder, of that 
splendid Museum, which is the boast of our University, and 
one of the most attractive as well as important objects of 
