294 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Leonard Horner was born in Edinburgh on the 17th January 
1785. He was the third and youngest son of John Horner, a 
merchant and linen-manufacturer, who long resided in Gleorge 
Square, Edinburgh, and was a citizen of marked ability, pos- 
sessing much information, and full of anecdotes of old times. 
Leonard’s mother was Joanna Baillie of the family of Baillies 
of Hochfour, Inverness-shire. He was sent to school at the 
age of seven, and wdien he was nine years old he entered the 
High School. His brother Francis was also a pupil of the same 
school, which at that time was presided over by its celebrated 
rector Dr Adam. He was a lively, but rather careless boy, and did 
not display the diligence or perseverance of his brother. His 
amiable manners, however, made him a great favourite with all. 
He displayed at first a fanc}- for a sea-faring life, but the idea was 
afterwards abandoned. On leaving the High School he entered 
the University of Edinburgh. He attended the lectures on mathe- 
matics by Playfair, and those on moral philosophy by Dugald 
Stewart, and in 1802 he became a pupil in the chemistry class 
taught by Dr Hope. At this time mineralogy occupied a share of 
his attention, and he began to form a collection of minerals. This 
early taste was developed in his after life. 
About the age of nineteen he went to London with his father, 
and there the family resided for many years. At the age of 
twenty-one he married Miss Lloyd, daughter of a landed proprietor 
in Yorkshire. He now entered with devotion into the study of 
science, and was received into eminent literary and scientific 
society in London. The intercourse which existed between his 
grandfather’s family and Dr Hutton seems to have operated on the 
mind of young Horner in inspiring him with a taste for geology. He 
entered the G-eological Society in 1808, the year after its formation. 
He was one of its earliest secretaries, and he continued to the last 
to take a warm and active interest in its proceedings. Circum- 
stances connected with the linen-trade obliged him to return to 
Edinburgh in 1815 in order to attend to business. In 1816 be 
became a Fellow of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. He con- 
tributed a paper on the occurrence of Megalichthys Ilihlerti in a 
bed of cannel coal in Fifeshire. Soon after this the premature 
death of his brother Francis, who was rising into eminence as a 
