XV 



four sessions, deyoting his time to the study of the classics and mathe- 

 matics, to civil and natural history, as well as chemistry, botany, and 

 zoology. 



In the third year of the curriculum he took up the subject of Natural 

 Philosophy, which appears to have had for him an absorbing interest. 

 The Professor in the University was Patrick Copland, a man gifted with 

 remarkable powers of elucidating the phenomena of the science by 

 experiments, and of attracting and fixing the attention of his young 

 pupils. Among these none profited so much by Copland's lectures as 

 the subject of this memoir. In this department Neil Arnott felt himself 

 thoroughly at home, and, aided by the friendly counsel and encourage- 

 ment of the Professor, he made great and rapid progress. He carried 

 away full notes of these lectures, and turned them to account in his after 

 studies. In other points, too, he benefited greatly by Copland's instruc- 

 tions, i. e. in selecting from daily life familiar illustrations of natural 

 phenomena, and in the invention and construction of the most simple 

 forms of apparatus for the purpose of experimental demonstration. 

 After a successful career of study, Neil Arnott obtained his M. A. degree 

 in the year 1805. 



He selected the medical profession for his future career, and com- 

 menced the study of medicine in Aberdeen, where it was known that he 

 had worked hard in order to qualify himself for entering one of the 

 London Hospital Schools. His wishes in this respect were soon gratified. 

 He arrived in London on the 29th September, 1806, when in his nine- 

 teenth year, and entered as a pupil at St. George's Hospital, under Sir 

 Everard Home. Through the influence of Sir Everard he, at a later 

 period, obtained an appointment as surgeon in the East-India Compan}' 's 

 medical service. Much of the experience of sea-life which he thereby 

 obtained he afterwards turned to good account in preparing the work by 

 which his name is so well known to the scientific world, — the ' Elements 

 of Physics.' Numerous observations on the waves, currents, tides, wdnds, 

 and storms, and on the depth and colour of the sea were made by him, 

 and afterwards incorporated in the chapters of this work. He left Eng- 

 land on his first voyage to China in 1807, before he had completed his 

 nineteenth year, and after a disastrous course, which took him across the 

 Atlantic to Eio, he landed at the Cape of Good Hope. He there ascended 

 the Table Mountain and made those meteorological observations which 

 are recorded in the ' Physics.' He returned to London in 1809, and made 

 a second voyage to China in 1810. 



It was duriDg these voyages, and when in charge of troops, that his 

 attention was specially directed to sanitary matters : ventilation, warmth, 

 clothing, food, air, and exercise were subjects which came before him in 

 a practical form, and many ingenious contrivances were resorted to by 

 him in order to restore and maintain in a healthy condition the invalided 

 men who had been placed under his care. He was so successful in these 



