14 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
praise, and were both proved and rewarded by the condition in 
which he maintained the Society while he was Secretary, and in 
which he left it when he resigned that office 
On occasion of his giving up the office of Secretary, the Eoyal 
Society recorded the expression of their sense of his valuable 
services in the following resolution : — “ That the Eoyal Society 
deeply laments that a necessity has arisen for the retirement of 
Principal Forbes from office as General Secretary. That it desires 
now to record in its minutes its grateful sense of the obligation 
under which it lies to Principal Forbes for the zeal and ability with 
which he has acted as its Secretary for the last twenty years, for 
the many important discoveries and inquiries in science which he 
has brought before its meetings, and for the eminent degree in 
which his exertions and example have contributed to its present 
prosperity ; and that, as a mark of the regard in which he has been 
long held, alike as an office-bearer and as a cultivator of physical 
science, he be requested to sit to an eminent artist for his portrait, 
to be hung in the Society’s apartments.” 
On the removal of Sir David Brewster to the headship of the 
University of Edinburgh, Professor Forbes was chosen Principal 
of the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard in the Univer- 
sity of St Andrews. His failing health, which, there can be little 
doubt, had suffered much from excessive exertions in his mountain 
excursions, and perhaps also from overstrained labour in some of 
his scientific researches, made the retreat thus offered to him a 
welcome refuge from the task of daily lectures to which he had be- 
come quite unequal. For a time after his removal to the retirement 
of St Andrews, he seemed to be rallying in strength, with the 
assistance of his annual residence in the pure air and amidst the 
interesting scenery of Perthshire, but the improvement did not 
continue, and his old ailment of hemorrhage from the lungs returned 
with alarming violence. He left St Andrews and removed to a 
milder climate, stopping ultimately at Clifton, where he died on 
the 31st of December 1868. We are told that “ whilst his body 
was reduced to the last stage of weakness, his mind remained self- 
controlled, unclouded, and peaceful to the end.” His activity and 
usefulness in his office of Principal of St Andrews University have 
been borne witness to, and a truthful and touching tribute paid to 
