226 
thrown upon the care of a maternal uncle, Mr John Miller, optician 
in Edinburgh, a well-informed and kind-hearted old man, fond of 
books and philosophy, and a great friend of one to whom Scotland 
is under considerable obligations, Mr David Herd, a well-known 
editor of Scottish ballads. Under his uncle’s instructions, Mr Adie 
became an optician, and followed his profession with great diligence 
and assiduity ; while, from a sense of his imperfect education in 
youth, he was not ashamed as he grew up to attend lectures, and 
take lessons at his leisure hours in all branches of science in which 
he found himself deficient. 
His attention to business, with his skill as a mechanic, his quick 
inventive powers, and his sound judgment, led to his being much 
employed by all kinds of inventors, to give their schemes a 
practical form ; and in this way he acquired great readiness and 
experience in the higher parts of his profession. His attention 
was at the same time directed at an early period to meteorological 
observations, with a view to which, and also with reference to the 
study of astronomy, he erected on his house in Merchant Court a 
small private observatory, long before any public establishment of 
the kind existed in Edinburgh. To his experiments the public are 
indebted for the important invention of the sympiesometer, an in- 
strument of great value at sea, and which may be considered as 
having contributed much to the safety of shipping. Mr Adie took 
great interest and gave valuable assistance in the preparation of 
apparatus and instruments required by scientific men in the course 
of their discoveries. He assisted Sir James Hall in his experiments 
for illustrating geological formations under high pressure, and his 
ingenuity was of great service in the construction of the minute but 
powerful lenses of garnet to which Sir David Brewster resorted in 
his improvements of the microscope. 
In such operations, in the daily conduct of his business, and in 
the education of his family, he spent the active part of a long life. 
In his later years he was an assiduous and successful gardener, 
and carried on experiments in that art till a late period. At the 
age of eighty-four he died as quietly as he had lived, respected 
and revered by all his family and acquaintance. I ought to mention, 
that in his youth he was a keen Volunteer, and always maintained 
that no invader could ever have got to Edinburgh except over the 
