178 Proceedings of Boy al Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
that the town of Wick was relieved of a debt of about £150,000 
to the Government in respect of a breakwater, which debt had 
crippled the energies of the town. He was elected a Fellow of 
this Society in 1869, and died on 7th July 1896. His character- 
istics were untiring industry, clear foresight, a capacity for dealing 
with finance, determined perseverance, and good common-sense. 
James Clerk Rattray was born on 21st January 1834. He 
was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, and by private 
tutors. He took his degree at Edinburgh University. He went 
into the Army Medical Service, and served for some years at 
Gibraltar and Malta. He retired in 1864. He never was in 
private practice. He was elected a Fellow of this Society in 1885, 
and died on 22nd February 1896. 
George M ‘Roberts was born in 1839, and was chiefly educated 
in the Falkirk Grammar School. For many years, in spare 
hours, and amid discouragements, he studied chemistry, more es- 
pecially in its technical aspects, and in 1870 he established a 
chemical manufactory at West Quarter, near Redding. About 
1873, he became associated with Mr Alfred Nobel, and took charge 
of the factory established by Messrs A. Nobel & Co. at Ardeer, 
near Irvine, in Ayrshire. This position he held for about fifteen 
years, when ill-health obliged him to resign. During these years 
he laboured unceasingly in developing the technical methods for 
the manufacture of explosives. The first pound of dynamite, on a 
manufacturing scale, was made by Nobel and M ‘Roberts, and to 
the latter are chiefly due the admirable arrangements at Ardeer by 
which this dangerous substance can be made in large quantities 
with a maximum of safety. Dynamite was succeeded and partly 
supplanted by blasting gelatine, a superior explosive, and M ‘Roberts 
brought his experience and inventive talents to bear on the mak- 
ing of this substance. When illness came — an insidious form of 
paralysis — an illness probably in no small measure due to his 
arduous life, his mental faculties were untouched, and he was able 
to take a leading part in the planning of the Government Factory at 
Waltham Abbey, at which the still more modern explosive Cordite 
is now made. A busy life, spent in the superintendence of techni- 
cal details, did not leave much time for publishing papers, but 
there is one on “ The Manufacture of Blasting Gelatine ” that 
