525 



ence to his connexion with the Royal Society that I will venture to 

 say a very few words. 



Mr. Baily was for several years Treasurer of our Society, and 

 generally held a seat in our Council, and was rarely absent from its 

 meetings. We are greatly indebted to him for much of the order 

 and system which prevail in our finances ; and upon every subject 

 connected with our administration his opinion was always listened 

 to with the respect and attention which was due to his excellent 

 temper, good sense and judgement. On questions of science he never 

 spoke when his knowledge of the subject did not entitle him to 

 speak with authority, and various as were the scientific researches 

 in which he was engaged, he never undertook a task which he did 

 not execute with extraordinary promptitude, completeness and accu- 

 racy ; so correct was the estimate which he had formed of the extent 

 of his own powers ; so persevering and systematic was his industry. 



Dr. Thomas Charles Hope was the son of Dr. John Hope, 

 Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh, and was born 

 at Edinburgh on the 21st of July 1766. 



His devotion to chemical science and his recognition as a chemist 

 date from an early period of his life ; for he was, on the death of Dr. 

 Irvine, appointed Lecturer on Chemistry at Glasgow on the 10th of 

 October 1787, while yet in his twenty-first year. He was farther, 

 in 1789, appointed Professor of Medicine in the same university, 

 conjointly with his uncle Dr. Stevenson. It does not appear, how- 

 ever, that he had actually delivered lectures on either subject in 

 Glasgow until 1793 ; he most probably passed the interval in study- 

 ing at home and abroad, for we are informed that he returned from 

 France in 1791, and he thereafter continued to lecture at Glasgow 

 until 1795. At this period, he received the distinguished compliment 

 of being recommended by Dr. Black as his assistant and successor 

 in the chemical chair at Edinburgh. Accordingly, in 1795, Dr. Hope 

 entered on his new duties by delivering a course conjointly with 

 Dr. Black, whose decaying powers permitted him only to deliver the 

 lectures on Caloric. In this, as well as in the courses of chemistry 

 which he delivered in Glasgow, Dr. Hope taught the then recent 

 doctrines of Lavoisier, which had not yet entirely overthrown the 

 doctrine of phlogiston, and had not previously been publicly taught 

 by any professor in Britain. 



Dr. Hope's exertions during his residence at Glasgow had not 

 been limited to writing and improving his lectures. On the 4th of 

 November 1793, he read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh his 

 well-known paper, " On a mineral from Strontian,"* in which he 

 pointed out the existence of an undescribed earth, distinct from 

 barytes, with which it had been confounded, and to which he gave 

 the name of Strontites. 



In 1803, in the 6th volume of Nicholson's Journal, a brief notice 

 was published of the instrument with which Dr. Hope employed a 

 solution of sulphuret of potassium for eudiometrical purposes ; and 

 in 1804, he laid before the Royal Society of Edinburgh the careful 



