227 



•was exposed towards the close of life to many attacks and much 

 opposition, in consequence of his too rigid adherence to a system 

 which might be calculated to do injustice to some classes of insurers, 

 yet no small indulgence is due even to the prejudices of a man who 

 had done so much service to society, by establishing upon a firm 

 basis the security of establishments which act as safeguards against 

 the fluctuations and vicissitudes of life, and which thus encourage 

 habits of providence and of foresight amongst the higher and middle 

 classes of the community. 



Mr. Thomas Allan, an eminent citizen of Edinburgh, was the 

 author of a work on Mineralogical Nomenclature, and of several pa- 

 pers on geology and mineralogy in the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh, and elsewhere. He was greatly distinguished 

 for his accurate knowledge of mineral species and their varieties, 

 and of all the delicate and minute distinctions of external characters 

 by which they are separated from each other ; and his collection of 

 minerals has been justly celebrated for its great extent and perfect 

 arrangement. In the year 1812 he joined Sir George Steuart Mac- 

 kenzie in an Excursion to the Faroe Islands, where he greatly enriched 

 his collection, particularly in zeolites. This expedition was under- 

 taken for the purpose of ascertaining whether, in a Trap Country, 

 where no traces of external volcanoes existed, any thing similar to 

 the peculiar features of the rocks of Iceland was to be found : and 

 his Account of the Mineralogy of these Islands, in which his object 

 has been to describe, without relation to theory, whatever appeared 

 to him interesting in a geological point of view, was read before 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh in the beginning of the following 

 year, and printed in the seventh volume of their Transactions. He 

 adopted in early life the opinions of Dr. Hutton, though his papers 

 on some points in geology in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and 

 in the environs of Nice, show him to have been an accurate and 

 an unprejudiced observer. He was a person of active habits and 

 character, a liberal supporter of public charities and useful institu- 

 tions, and an ardent and even enthusiastic friend of all the schemes 

 for the improvement and decoration of his own magnificent and pic- 

 turesque metropolis. 



Da. William Babington was a distinguished physician in the City 

 of London. He was formerly a lecturer on materia medica and on 

 chemistry at Guy's Hospital, and he was the author of a Systematic 

 Arrangement of Minerals, founded upon a joint consideration of their 

 chemical, physical and external characters ; and also of other works, 

 of less importance, upon mineralogical arrangement. He was the 

 active and disinterested friend of science and of men of science, from 

 the time of Priestley to that of Sir Humphry Davy ; and though the 

 absorbing duties of a laborious profession prevented his taking a 

 leading part in original inquiries, he was well acquainted with the 

 existing state of knowledge, particularly in geology, physiology and 

 chemistry. He was one of the first founders of the Geological So- 

 ciety ; and the earliest meetings of that distinguished body, which 

 has contributed so powerfully to the advancement of geological know- 



