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under his own roof. At an early age he shoM-ed fondness for tne 

 pursuits of science, and was placed in the sugar refining establish- 

 ment of a relative, where he introduced important improvements in 

 the manufacture. The pursuits of business, however, were uncon- 

 genial to his tastes, and he soon relinquished this occupation. In 

 1813 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, of which body 

 he continued till the day of his death a zealous and active member. 



The services he rendered to more than one branch of science 

 were of no ordinary description. From an early period of his life 

 his mind was directed to the study of meteorology, at a time when it 

 consisted of little more than a vast accumulation of facts and ob- 

 servations. 



In the year 1823 he published the first edition of his 'Meteoro- 

 logical Essays,' which constituted a new epoch in the science, and 

 still continues the standard work of reference, the third edition of 

 which he had nearly completed at the time of his death. This was 

 the first attempt to embrace in a general view the scattered facts of 

 the science, and by synthetically applying the known laws which re- 

 gulate the constitution of gases and vapours, the principles of their 

 equilibrium, and the distribution of heat among them, to give a con- 

 nected account of the main phenomena of the earth's atmosphere. 

 He insisted on the paramount importance of extreme accuracy in 

 the construction of the instruments employed for such inquiries, and 

 gave directions by which the needful accuracy could with certainty 

 and facility be obtained. By the invention of the hygrometer, which 

 bears his name, he first conferred precision on the means of ascer- 

 taining the moisture or dryness of the atmosphere, a point of cardi- 

 nal importance in all investigations of this nature ; his instrument 

 still continues that which can be best depended upon for this pur- 

 pose. With these accurate instruments, he for three years kept a 

 faithful register of the various atmospheric changes ; he organized 

 the plan adopted by the Horticultural Society in their annual me- 

 teorological reports, a plan which formed the model to the admirable 

 and more extended series of meteorological observations now issued 

 weekly from the Greenwich Observatory under the superintendence 

 of the Astronomer Royal. 



In the year 1824 he communicated to the Horticultural Society 

 an essay 'On Artificial Climate,' which appeared in their Transactions 

 for that year. In this paper among other subjects he insisted on 

 the absolute necessity of attention to the moisture of the atmosphere, 

 as well as of that of maintaining in our hot-houses the moisture as 

 well as the temperature of a tropical climate, if we would produce 

 a vegetation of tropical luxuriance. The publication of this essay 

 caused a complete change in the methods adopted for the culture of 

 plants in general, and particularly of those contained in green- 

 houses and hot-houses, which upon the new plans speedily outgrew 

 the houses provided for their reception. The Society immediately 

 awarded him their silver medal to mark their sense of the import- 

 ance of his views, and now after an experience of more than twenty 

 years, Dr. Lindley, Professor of Botany in University College, not 



