Obituary Notices. 
xxxix 
William Durham. By Professor C. G. Knott, D.Sc. 
(Read January 21, 1895.) 
William Durham was horn at Edinburgh in November 1834. 
He received his education at the Edinburgh High School; but, 
much to his own disappointment and that of the rector, was removed 
at a comparatively early age and put to business. After spending 
some years in the publishing-house of Adam Black, senior, he was 
taken into his father’s business of wholesale stationer and paper- 
maker. But Mr Durham was, by nature, a student. Science, 
especially chemistry, was his chief interest through life. It was 
this interest which sustained him in spirit amid the trials and dis- 
appointments that are almost inevitable when a man is launched on 
a career essentially out of harmony with his whole bent of mind. 
When a little over twenty years of age, William Durham set up his 
private laboratory at Glenesk House, Loanhead ; and experimental 
work occupied much of his attention to the day of his death, 
January 23, 1893. 
He was one of Professor Tait’s earliest laboratory students, and 
his first paper communicated to this Society is a record of work 
done there. The title is “ On the Currents produced by Contact of 
Wires of the same Metal at different Temperatures,” read 3rd June 
1872 {Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin.^ vii. pp. 788-791). The investigation 
was undertaken at Professor Tait’s suggestion, and the general result 
is that up to temperatures of 325° C. the transient current obtained 
by contact of hot and cold platinum wires is proportional to the 
difference of temperature. The novelty of the method employed 
deserves mention ; and also the peculiar difficulty of getting exactly 
similar contacts between exactly similar pairs of’ surfaces at given 
temperatures. The constancy in the results obtained by Mr 
Durham attests his skill and patience as an experimenter. 
Mr Durham was elected a Fellow of the Society in February 
1874, and all his other papers have to do with solutions. The most 
