739 
of Edinburgh, Session 1881-82. 
As a public official in the Perth Boyal Asylum, liis bearing and 
administration were admirable ; nor were his relations in private life 
less worthy of esteem. He placed the institution on a sound basis 
financially, in his early years, and reorganised every department ; 
while in his later years of office he greatly improved and beautified 
the internal arrangements of the various wards, and he did so with 
uncommon ingenuity and taste. Shrewd and acute to an extra- 
ordinary degree, he proved himself a most accomplished alienist- 
physician, kind and considerate to his patients, skilful in pro- 
moting their comfort and recovery, and an apt organiser of all 
the events that constantly take place in such institutions. His 
thorough medical training, and his natural penetration, made him 
always a safe and prudent adviser. 
Originally of a slight build, his intense application to work caused 
his health to give way after his marriage in 1859, and even the 
improvement gained by the year’s relief in 1861-62 gradually wore 
off on the active resumption of literary and official engagements. 
Indeed, for years before his death he was an invalid. Yet he 
bravely did his duty to the last, and kept a cheerful word for every 
one — even while he doubted if his strength would enable him to 
conclude his visit. Probably for the same reason he avoided 
society, solacing himself rather with his books and microscope. 
His health unfortunately showed no sign of improvement, and he 
had hardly been a year out of office when he succumbed to the 
increasing exhaustion on the 28th November 1880, at the compara- 
tively early age of fifty-one. Much of the work his ardent mind 
sketched out for himself he left undone ; but he achieved enough 
to win a solid reputation, and to furnish a worthy example of what 
ability and application can do under difficulties. 
Professor Benjamin Peirce. By Professor Simon Newcomb. 
Professor Peirce was born at Salem, Massachusetts, April 4, 
1809, and graduated at Harvard College in 1829. He made the 
acquaintance of Dr Nathaniel Bowditch, the translator of the 
Mecaniqae Celeste , and assisted him in getting his great work 
through the press. He spent two years after his graduation in 
teaching. He was appointed tutor in mathematics at Harvard 
VOL. xi. 4 L 
