ix 



to the enthusiastic zeal with which Mr. Duppa prosecuted chemical in- 

 vestigation during these years. 



In 1867 Dr. Frankland resigned his professorship at the Eoyal 

 Institution ; and Mr. Duppa accompanied him to the private laboratory at 

 the Government College of Chemistry, which was then in its old quarters in 

 Oxford Street ; but the meagre resources of this laboratory could not, 

 even in his hands, be turned to account for the prosecution of these in- 

 vestigations, and the work had to be abandoned in despair ; or rather 

 it was postponed in anticipation of the completion of the new laboratories 

 at South Kensington, which had been promised from year to year! At 

 length, early in the present year, the new research laboratory was par- 

 tially completed, and Duppa, all eagerness to recommence the work so long 

 in abeyance, took a house in London, solely to enable him to prosecute 

 his chemical labours. Alas ! it was too late. Before he could again 

 resume that which always afforded him so much pure pleasure, he was 

 attacked by the malady which prematurely cut short his useful life. 

 He died of consumption at Budleigh-Salterton, Devonshire, on the 10th 

 of November, aged forty-five years, retaining his interest in experimental 

 science to the last. A few hours before his death he dictated a long 

 letter, accompanied by a diagram, to Professor Tyndall on a curious 

 optical phenomenon which he had recently observed. 



Mr. Duppa was elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1867. He 

 married in 1869 Adeline Frances Mary Dart, the only surviving child of 

 J.H.Dart,Esq.,Barrister-at-Law, of Beech House near Bingwood, Hants. 

 He leaves a widow and one child. He was a warm-hearted and faithful 

 friend, and, as a landowner and Justice of the Peace in Kent, he 

 was well known and much esteemed. His devotion to science did not 

 prevent his taking a deep interest in art. He was a painter of no in- 

 considerable ability; and from his frequent wanderings in search of 

 health in France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Algeria, and Madeira he 

 always brought home his portfolio well filled with beautiful and in- 

 teresting sketches, in which he sometimes embodied the effects of ancient 

 and modern volcanic and glacial action with great vividness and truth. 



Having a small private fortune, he never applied for nor held any 

 scientific appointment. He always entertained a disinclination to 

 lecturing and public speaking. Had this been otherwif e, he could scarcely 

 have failed to make his mark as a lecturer on his favourite science $ for 

 in conversation he had few rivals in popular scientific exposition, and in 

 the laboratory perhaps none in devising appropriate experimental illus- 

 trations of chemical phenomena. He was one of that small band of 

 enthusiastic and disinterested amateur labourers who have performed so 

 large a proportion of the original scientific work of this country, and of 

 whom England may justly feel proud. 



VOL. XXI. 



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