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Philosophical Society, a president of the Botanical Society of Edin- 
burgh, a member of Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 
and a member of the Royal Society Club, a president of the Royal 
Scottish Society of Arts, a secretary of the Edinburgh Microscopical 
Society, an honorary member of the Edinburgh Geological Society, 
a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, an honorary presi- 
dent of the Edinburgh Association of Science and Art, an honorary 
member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and an 
honorary member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Austria, the 
Philosophical Society of America, Philadelphia, and the Eranklin 
Institute of Pennsylvania. 
He was a liberal contributor to the Transactions of the various 
literary and philosophical societies with which he was connected, to 
the Art Journal , and Journal of the Society of Arts , to the eighth 
edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to Chambers's Encyclopaedia , 
and to other works. 
Called frequently to London on the business of his Department, 
Mr Archer had occasion to be there in February 1885, and had 
arranged to return to Edinburgh on the 19th of that month. Two 
of his daughters had joined him in the Midland Grand Hotel, and 
were proceeding to breakfast, intending afterwards to accompany 
him to the railway station, when, without premonition of any kind, 
he fell down in the hall and expired. He was predeceased in 
1879 by his wife, and is survived by one son and four daughters. 
His eldest son and a daughter predeceased him. 
Mr Archer was a man of great energy of character, and of wide 
and varied information. Throughout life he enjoyed exceptional 
facilities for becoming acquainted with an infinite variety of men 
and things in this country and abroad, and these facilities he utilised 
to the fullest extent. His retentive memory supplied him with 
inexhaustible sources of interesting conversation, and — underlying 
occasional apparent sharpness of manner — there were unfailing 
kindness, a high sense of honour, and, to those who knew him 
best, a depth and tenderness of feeling which were irresistibly 
attractive. 
The writer of the present notice enjoyed Mr Archer’s friendship for 
five-and-twenty years. He had the privilege of accompanying him 
in travels abroad, and enjoying his close friendship at home, and 
h 
