542 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Edinburgh, we have peculiar cause to mourn the loss of such a 
man. Though his residence from boyhood had been chiefly in 
London, he never to the last relinquished his enthusiastic regard 
for the land of his birth. He never lost an opportunity of boasting 
that he was a Scot. During the last ten years of his life he made 
frequent and protracted tours in the Highlands ; and, in unravel- 
ling their complicated geological structure, he accomplished one 
of the most brilliant generalisations of his long and illustrious 
scientific career. There is something touching in the reflection 
that, after having travelled and toiled all over Europe, gaining the 
highest position and rewards which a scientific man can attain, he 
should at last, ripe in years and in honours, have come back to his 
own Highlands, and there completed his life-work by bringing into 
order the chaos of the primary rocks, and laying such an impress 
on Scottish geology as had never been laid before by any single 
observer. Eor these and other researches he received from this 
Society the first Brisbane Medal — an honour conferred on him at 
the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association, and of which he 
often spoke as one that gave him the deepest gratification. He 
used to boast, too, of being an honorary Fellow of this Society, and 
to quote a remark made to him by the late Kobert Brown, that his 
election into the list of our honorary Fellows was one of the highest 
marks of distinction he could receive. His kindly interest in. our 
prosperity was often expressed ; and we have a token of it in the 
presentation to us of his bust by Weekes, which this evening is 
formally delivered to the Society. 
“ Of the closing acts of his life, there is one which cannot be 
mentioned without peculiar pride — the institution of a Chair of 
Greology and Mineralogy in the University of Edinburgh. He 
intended to found this Chair by bequest; but on the retirement of 
Dr Allman from the Chair of Natural History, he determined to 
do in his lifetime what w'ould otherwise have been accomplished 
not till after his death. He gave to the University a sum of 
£6000 ; and the Crown having consented to add an annual grant 
of £200, the Chair was founded in the spring of the present year. 
Sir Roderick has not lived to witness the first beginnings of the 
tuition which he had started. But long after the memory of his 
personal character shall fade, men will remember the work which 
