278 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
brought to Edinburgh, and were interred in the G-range Cemetery. 
The funeral was attended by a very large company, including the 
magistrates and council of the city, ministers of nearly every deno- 
mination, both in the city and from different parts of the country, 
representatives of various public bodies, the directors and children 
of the Original Bagged School, as well as the personal friends and 
relations of the deceased. The procession extended for about 
three quarters of a mile, and moved through an immense crowd of 
people of all classes, assembled to show the last mark of respect to 
one than whom no citizen of Edinburgh was better known or more 
universally esteemed, as well for his private virtues and noble 
character as for his unwearied exertions for the benefit of others, 
especially for the relief of the destitute and the recovery of the 
fallen. 
3. Obituary Notice of Mr E. W. Thomson. By 
Professor Fleeming Jenkin. 
Mr E. W. Thomson, most widely known as the inventor of the 
road-steamer, died on the 8th of March 1873, in the fiftieth year 
of his age. By his death the community has lost a distinguished 
engineer, a remarkable thinker, and a highly original inventor. 
Bom in 1822, in Stonehaven, Mr Thomson furnishes one more 
example of the many Scotchmen who by sheer force of character, 
without any adventitious aid, have risen to be leaders in their 
profession and benefactors to their country. His father started 
on a small scale the only factory which even now Stonehaven 
possesses, and destined his eldest son (the subject of our memoir) 
to the pulpit, but the lad showed such dislike to classical studies 
that he was sent to Charleston, U.S., at the age of fourteen, to 
be educated as a merchant. Commerce proved as distasteful as 
the classics, and he returned at the age of sixteen to this country, 
where he began his self-education, aided materially by a weaver 
who chanced to be a mathematician. 
Now, when scientific and technical education is almost thrust 
upon careless students, it is well to remember how this able and 
successful engineer acquired his knowledge, and to learn that 
energy in the pursuit of science is far more important than the 
