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schoolfellows, and was highly esteemed by his teachers for his con- 
scientious discharge of every duty. 
Shortly after he had entered the University his desire to engage 
in original work began to show itself in his devotion to the study of 
botany and zoology. It was his original intention to graduate in 
medicine, but the attractions of biological science were too great to 
permit of his devoting any large amount of attention to the other 
subjects of medical study, and at length he gave up all idea of 
qualifying as a medical man or entering into medical practice. At 
this early period his desire to be free from the trammels of customary 
methods of study, and to trust to his own efforts, was well shown 
by the reply which Professor Balfour, then Professor of Botany, made 
to him on his soliciting a certificate of attendance on his class — “ I 
will willingly testify to your knowledge of botany, but I cannot 
certify that you attended my class.” This early formed spirit of 
self-reliance and determination to investigate natural objects them- 
selves, rather than trust merely to the results of the observations of 
others, seems to have pervaded his life, and to have led to the 
urgent requests he continually made for aid to establish collec- 
tions in public institutions, and at length to the appeal to the 
Government itself for the means of carrying out what became the 
most important work of his life, that of determining the physical 
and vital conditions which prevail at different depths of the ocean. 
I first met Wyville Thomson at the house of my late dear friend, 
Professor J. H. Bennett, at the time of the meeting of the British 
Association in Edinburgh in 1850, when the friendship commenced 
which remained unbroken for a single hour during the whole of his 
life. I was greatly impressed with his knowledge of botany, and 
with the energy and determination in the pursuit of science of one 
who appeared to me to have the most tempting professional career 
open before him. 
Dr Dickie had been removed from the University and King’s 
College, Aberdeen, to the chair of Natural History in Queen’s 
College, Belfast. Finding that Thomson had no disinclination to 
devote himself, for some time at least, to scientific work, I had the 
pleasure of recommending him for the vacant lectureship, and 
seeing him start on the career which ended so brilliantly but pre- 
maturely. In 1851 he was prevailed on to leave King’s and to 
