Sir John Murray. 



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Stirlingshire. He helped his grandfather in purchasing and collecting 

 specimens for a museum, the remnants of which are still exhibited in the 

 Macfarlane Institute at Bridge of Allan, many of the labels being in 

 Murray's handwriting. Whilst living with his Scottish relatives he attended 

 the High School, Stirling, and here he showed great interest in science. He 

 used to pay especial attention to the teaching of Mr. Duncan Macdougall, 

 from whom he learnt the principles of the sextant and how to construct an 

 electric lamp and a battery of 80 Bunsen cells. 



Murray remained for a long time at School and College. In fact, as he 

 himself records, he came to be known as a " chronic student " at the 

 University of Edinburgh. One thing he would not do, he would not go in 

 for examinations. He learnt what he wanted to learn, and the mere learning 

 was to him its own reward. 



At the University, although in the main he followed the Science course, 

 he was not infrequently to be seen in the lecture rooms of the literary 

 professors and from time to time in those of the theological professors. 

 Amongst his student Mends more than one have made a mark on the 

 theological thought of the last half of the nineteenth century. Occasionally 

 he even Listened to Law. His Zoology and Anatomy he studied under 

 Ooodsir and Turner, the present Principal, whilst he worked at Chemistry 

 with Playfair and Crum Brown, and at Natural History with Allman. But 

 undoubtedly the teacher who made most mark upon his mind was Prof. Tait, 

 in whose laboratory he worked for several terms under William Thomson, 

 (afterwards Lord Kelvin), Clerk Maxwell, and with his life-long friend, 

 Eobertson Smith, who. at that time was demonstrator to Tait and was 

 writing more than one mathematical paper of note. Later Robertson Smith 

 became a distinguished Semitic scholar, one of the editors of the 9th edition 

 of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica," and after a theological controversy with 

 the Free Church of Scotland a Professor of Arabic in the University of 

 Cambridge, and, finally, University Librarian. 



Tait was then, perhaps, at the height of his reputation and many students 

 of various sorts were attracted to his laboratory ; Sir John Jackson and 

 Mr. Meik, the celebrated engineers, were amongst the young physicists, and 

 curiously enough Robert Louis Stevenson was another. The last named, 

 however, had no interest in science and used to beguile his demonstrator, 

 Robertson Smith, into theological disputes, so dear to all true Scots. 



Murray was always a great individualist, and he worked at what interested 

 him with no eye to examinations or degrees, and although in later life he 

 must have been surfeited with honorary degrees, as a student he passed by 

 the examinations and the consequent degrees and never graduated. 



In the year 1868, in a spirit of adventure and on the strength of having 

 attended medical classes in Edinburgh, Murray accepted the post of surgeon 

 on the whaler "Jan Mayen." He left Peterhead in February, and was 

 away seven months. He saw a good deal of the Arctic regions, explored 

 part of Spitzbergen, and landed at least once on Jan Mayen. During his 



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