355 
“ The Society has striven to show how much they appreciated the 
zeal of Sir T. Brisbane in this matter by taking the initiative in 
providing for the publication of the final, but less continuous, obser- 
vations, both magnetical and meteorological, which were made at 
Makerstoun subsequently to the year 1846, with which the records 
contained in Vol. XIX. of our Transactions terminates. 
“ Sir Thomas, as usual, entered warmly into the scheme, and 
defrayed an equal share of the expense. A great part of the proof 
sheets were put into his hands not long before his death ; and it will 
be with a melancholy satisfaction that the fellows will receive, on this 
first anniversary meeting since his death, the fasciculus containing 
the last bequest to science of our late eminent and disinterested 
President. 
“ It would be unjust to Sir Thomas Brisbane’s memory not to 
add, that when from increasing weakness and disease he became 
wholly incapable of attending the meetings, he, not once, but 
repeatedly, placed his resignation in the hands of the Council. But 
they, acting as just interpreters of the feeling of the Society on each 
of those occasions, besought the veteran general to remain at their 
head, confident that, in heart at least, he was as devoted as ever to 
the cause in which they, as well as he, had laboured.” 
For myself, I must express my great regret that I have never 
had the honour of knowing, or even seeing Sir Thomas Brisbane, 
and that therefore I have no means of speaking, except on the 
authority of others, of those personal qualities which are alluded to 
by Principal Forbes in the passage I have now read. But from 
other sources I know enough of the incidents and tenor of his life to 
entitle me to say that, eminent as Sir T. Brisbane was as a soldier 
and as a man of science, he was not less remarkable for the bene- 
volence of his heart, and the highest virtues of the Christian 
character. 
Among the Fellows of this Society whom we have lost during the 
present year, there is another whose name I cannot pass by in 
silence, or with mere mention only, I mean the name of Mount- 
stuart Elphinstone. In all probability there are few members of 
this Society now present to whom this distinguished man was per- 
sonally known : because the greater part of his life was spent in 
India, and the remainder of it in very close retirement. But his 
name is familiar to all of us as one of the most eminent among those 
