98 Mr Rankine an the Reconcentration of the 



Dr Thomas Thomson, of the Bengal army, the author of 

 " Travels in Tibet," about to appear, — the result of several 

 years' researches into the botany and physical structure of 

 the Himalaya Mountains ; and a daughter, married to her 

 cousin, Dr R. D. Thomson. On strangers, Dr Thomson 

 occasionally made unfavourable impressions ; but by all who 

 knew him intimately, he was universally recognised as the 

 most friendly and benevolent of men. He contributed to 

 most of the charitable institutions of the city, and was never 

 once known to refuse assistance to the poor and friendless. 

 Dr Thomson was originally destined for the Church of Scot- 

 land, and continued to the last a faithful adherent. He was 

 wont to attribute his sound and intellectual views of the 

 Christian faith to the care of his mother — a woman of great 

 beauty and sense ; and it was perhaps from his affection for 

 her that his favourite axiom originated — that the talents are 

 derived from the maternal parent. Who shall prescribe 

 exact limits to the benefits conferred on her country and her 

 race by this humble, but pious Christian woman, who taught 

 in early life religion to her elder son, the author of the article 

 Scripture, in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," which, in the 

 third, and many subsequent editions of that work, has been 

 read and distributed over the globe for nearly half a century, 

 to a greater extent than perhaps any other religious treatise, 

 and who gave the earliest impressions of his relations to his 

 Maker to the great chemical philosopher?* 



On the Reconcentration of the Mechanical Energy of the 

 Universe. By William John Macquorn Rankine, 

 C.E, F.R.S.E., &ct 



The following remarks have been suggested by a paper by 



* [The very prominent part Dr Thomson took in the important and harmo- 

 niously-conducted discussions in the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the Wer- 

 nerian and Huttonian geologies, and which led to the establishment of the Wer- 

 nerian Society of Edinburgh, and the Geological Society of London, &c, should 

 have formed an important feature in his Biography. — Ed. Edin. New Phil. Jour.] 



t Read to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A, 

 at Belfast, on the 2d September 1852. 



