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of Edinburgh, Session 1867 - 68 . 
contributor to different medical and scientific journals ; and it is 
wonderful how, amid the occupations of an extensive practice, he 
could have found leisure for such a variety of pursuits. His various 
writings, which are too numerous for insertion here, appeared as 
separate articles, in the “Proceedings” of the societies to which 
he belonged, in the medical and scientific journals of London and 
Edinburgh, and in the newspapers of the localities in which his lot 
was cast. Dr Black was a devoted philanthropist, and a defender 
of Scripture against science, falsely so called. He died at Edin- 
burgh on the 30th April 1867, in the eightieth year of his age, 
leaving a widow and two sons to lament his loss. 
Alexander Bryson, an eminent naturalist, was bom at Edin- 
burgh on the 12th October 1816, and was the eldest son of Robert 
Bryson, senior partner in the celebrated firm of clock and watch- 
makers. After receiving his preliminary education at the High 
School, he was apprenticed to a watch and clock maker in Mussel- 
burgh, and subsequently went to London to acquire a higher 
knowledge of his profession. On his return to Edinburgh, after a 
year’s absence, he was received into partnership with his father 
and brother ; and was then able to pursue his scientific tastes, by 
attending the classes of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in the 
University, and the lectures delivered in the School of Arts. Mr 
Bryson was elected a Fellow of this Society in 1858, and con- 
tributed to its “ Transactions” the biographies of Sir Thomas Mak- 
dougal Brisbane and Dr John Fleming, and other papers, on the 
Preservation of Footprints on the Sand, and on the Boring of thePho- 
ladidae. He was elected, in 1860, President of the Royal Society of 
Arts, to which he contributed several papers, for one of which, on 
the Method of detecting the Presence of Icebergs in Darkness, he 
received the Hepburn Prize. He was elected President of the Royal 
Physical Society in 1863, and contributed a large number of papers 
to its “ Proceedings.” Mr Bryson was likewise a member of the So- 
ciety of Scottish Antiquaries, the Botanical Society, the Geological 
Societies of London and Edinburgh, and the British Association, at 
whose meetings he read various papers, chiefly on geological subjects. 
Mr Bryson died at Hawkhill on the 7th December 1866, in the 
fifty-first )ear of his age. 
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VOL. VI. 
