196 Transactions of the Boyal Society of South Africa. 
highly-respected clock and watch-makers in the town of Aberdeen. To 
this day in many a home in the north of Scotland there is testimony 
to the excellence of the w^ork turned out by the Gills ; and no doubt the 
future astronomer owed much of his own aspiration after the best, as well 
as his impatience with inferior work on the part of others, to the rugged 
and upright character of his forebears. It is cei'tain that his strongly 
developed mechanical skill, his deftness and sureness of touch, came from 
a long line of superior workmen. From Gill himself I heard this story of 
his first meeting with Nasmyth the engineer. After some slight conver- 
sation on many matters, Nasmyth blurted out in Scotch, Man, I like 
yer thum ! " Gill had the engineer's thumb and hand, broad, strong, 
flexible. 
From his mother he inherited the tenderness and delicate sympathy 
which never failed him all through his life, and which made his friendship 
such a rare gift, and his comradeship a memorable experience. 
Until his fourteenth year young Gill attended the Belle vue Academy 
in the town of Aberdeen. In 1857 he went to Dollar Academy, where he 
found an inspiring influence in Dr. Lindsay, at w^iose house he boarded. 
It was Dr. Lindsay w^ho gave a permanent direction to Gill's mind and 
purpose by strengthening and fostering that aptitude for science and 
mathematics which even in his boyhood was clearly noticeable. 
In 1858 Gill was at Marischal College, Aberdeen, taking the ordinary 
arts curriculum of those days. 
In 1859 there entered into his life its most potent intellectual influence. 
In this year he took the senior mathematical class, and the class for 
Natural Philosophy, thus coming under the spell of that great teacher 
and prophet Clerk Maxwell. The impact of Maxwell's keen intellect upon 
the reflective and receptive mind of young Gill was deep and lasting. Of 
his college days under Maxwell he thus w^rote towards the close of his 
life: They were hours of purest delight to me;" and yet again, 
" Maxwell was supreme as an inspiration." Indeed, he never ceased 
to write and speak in terms of highest admiration of his teacher, and it 
is delightful to know that in the after-years the relationship begun as 
pupil and master became one of most intimate friendship. 
It is significant to note that tow^ards the close of his stay at Marischal 
College, Gill w^as strongly drawn towards the study of electricity, probably 
due to Maxwell's influence, and those intimately acquainted with him 
know that he never lost his practical interest in, or his thorough knowledge 
of, this science, a knowledge and an interest which stood him in good 
stead when electricity became the simplest and most effective motive 
force in observatory equipment. 
The future cast for young Gill was that he should follow the career of 
his father and grandfather, and in this direction at the close of his college 
