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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
mination. That there were disadvantages attending this habit of 
mind is undoubtedly true; but, in the main, it enabled him to 
overtake an amount and range of work quite remarkable in its 
extent and variety. 
His administrative talent was conspicuous ; and in work which 
brought him in contact with large numbers of persons of diverging 
views and opinions, his genial presence and firm attitude often 
secured united action, and moderated with singular success in 
divided counsels. 
His courtesy of manner, kindness of heart, and obviously earnest 
desire to be helpful, attracted towards him the confidence and 
affection of a wide circle of attached friends. 
Broadly viewed, few more useful lives have been spent in the 
community of which he was a member, and still fewer have 
commanded for themselves so much influence and regard as to leave, 
as he has done, a vacant space in society, which it is not probable 
we shall soon or easily see adequately filled. 
William Lauder Lindsay. By Dr. W. C. MTmtosh, F.B.S. 
Dr. William Lauder Lindsay was bom at Edinburgh on the 
19tli December 1829, and received his education at the High School. 
He had naturally strong tastes towards botany and geology, and had 
collected plants even before entering the University as a student of 
medicine in 1847. During his medical curriculum his botanical 
tendencies received a great impetus, as he himself records, from 
Professor Balfour, in whose classes for two summers he carried off 
high honours. Some of his beautiful dissections of grasses are still 
justly admired in the Museum in the Botanic Garden. After a 
career in which he distinguished himself as a zealous and indus- 
trious student, he graduated as Doctor of Medicine in 1852, his 
thesis being on the “ Structure and Physiology of the Lichens.” This 
essay and its illustrative preparations received the high commen- 
dation of the Medical Faculty. He soon after competed for the 
Conservatorship of the Museum of the Poyal College of Surgeons, 
Edinburgh, but the late Professor Sanders obtained the post. He 
then became Resident Physician in the Cholera Hospital, Surgeon’s 
Square, under the amiable and accomplished Dr. Warburton Begbie, 
