of Edinburgh, Session 1869-70. 
19 
Prior, I believe, to the year 1850 the Mastership of the Mint had 
for a long time been a political office, the occupant of which was 
removable with the ministry with whom he was associated. The 
individual who held it was, in this way, not a man of science, but 
a statesman of general intelligence and business habits, whose 
duty it was to superintend and keep to their tasks the permanent 
officials by whom the work was understood and performed. In 
1850 a change was made in this respect, and apparently a change 
for the better. It was determined that the office should be held 
by a man of science, not connected or removable with the ministry 
of the day, but who should give his talents and time to the actual 
working of the department. The office, as thus remodelled, was 
conferred upon Sir John Herschel, in acknowledgment of the high 
eminence which he had attained in so many branches of science. 
He held the office till 1855, when he resigned it from bad health, 
and Dr Graham was then appointed. He continued to hold the 
office and discharge its duties till his death with the utmost dili- 
gence and efficiency.* 
All who knew Graham concur in bearing testimony to the purity 
and simplicity of his nature, and to the justice, generosity, and 
kindness of his conduct. He was physically too weak, and perhaps 
too much engrossed with scientific objects, to enter much into 
society; and he had no ambition for display, but was solely bent 
upon the discovery of scientific truth for its own sake, and for the 
advancement of scientific objects. He has been cut off in the 
midst of a noble and useful career, when it might have been 
hoped that some years of active investigation would still be allowed 
him, and from which it is not easy to estimate what results might 
have followed. The loss which science has thus sustained can only 
be repaired by similar exertions made in a similar spirit by those 
who possess the natural qualifications that are essential to scientific 
inquiry. 
Dr Graham, for some time previous to his last illness, had 
occasionally gone to Malvern for a day or two at the end of a 
week, and derived much benefit from the change. On the last 
* If any further change be contemplated in this department, it is to be 
hoped that it will not tend to deprive men of science of what is at once a 
fair reward and a fitting sphere of usefulness. 
