386 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
Henry Newton Dickson, M.A., D.Sc. (Oxon.). 
By Dr Hugh Robert Mill. 
(Read March 5, 1923.) 
Henry Newton Dickson was born in Edinburgh on June 24, 1866, being 
the younger son of Mr William Dickson, F.R.S.E. After an early educa- 
tion at the Edinburgh Collegiate School under Dr A. H. Bryce, he entered 
the Arts classes of Edinburgh University in 1882. The time was one of 
extraordinary progress in research on the air and the oceans, thanks to the 
labours of Dr Alexander Buchan and Sir John Murray, who had made 
Edinburgh the world-centre of meteorology and oceanography. Many 
students were pressed into the service of Professor P. G. Tait in his experi- 
ments for the Challenger Reports, and so it was that Dickson served his 
apprenticeship in research by taking part in determining the pressure- 
corrections of deep-sea thermometers, and the coefficient of compressibility 
of sea- water in the physical laboratory of the University. He also 
assisted me on several oceanographical trips in connection with the newly 
founded Scottish Marine Station, and volunteered as an assistant to Mr 
R. T. Omond in the High-Level Meteorological Observatory on Ben Nevis. 
The newly-established Scottish Geographical Society also flourished in the 
invigorating atmosphere of research in physical geography, which inspired 
many students of the period to enthusiasm ; but his native city offered no 
scope to Dickson’s ambition. 
In 1891 he was working on the salinity and temperature of the water 
in the English Channel at the Marine Biological Association’s laboratory at 
Plymouth. Two years later he moved to Oxford, where he pursued his 
oceanographical studies in the University Chemical Laboratory. Dickson 
came more and more into touch with practical work in geography, and 
in 1899 he became Lecturer on Physical Geography and teacher of Survey- 
ing in the School of Geography in the University of Oxford. He also 
undertook the study of the water-level in the chalk formation, which 
depends equally on meteorological and geological conditions, and has a 
great practical bearing on water-supply. He took part in the work of the 
scientific societies of London, especially the Royal Geographical Society on 
the Council of which he sat for some time, and the Royal Meteorological 
Society which he served in many capacities and acted as President in 
1911-12. He was diligent in attendance at the meetings of the British 
