Obituary Notices. 
XXVll 
he hated, and the palaver of a dilettante he met with ridicule. He 
received a grant of <£100 per annum from Government as a recog- 
nition of his valuable scientific work ; and the associated Scottish 
life assurance offices, feeling that some substantial recompense was 
due to him for his logarithms and actuarial tables, at a meeting in 
1878 resolved to recommend to the offices the payment of an 
annuity of £100 . . . . for the remainder of his life, which was 
agreed to and subscribed by the offices. His great work on 
Logarithms, faultless as it is believed to be for accuracy, is a monu- 
ment not only to his mathematical skill, but to his tenacity of pur- 
pose and love of science. There are few who for forty years could 
have, with what may be termed intermittent continuity, persevered 
with such a colossal work ; and the pity of it is that forty -seven 
volumes of such valuable matter for astronomers, navigators, and 
others should be lying uncared for and useless. Such a work surely 
demands the care of Government or some of the learned societies. 
In 1881 he was made corresponding member of the Royal Tunis 
Academy. In 1883 he was honoured by being made an LL.D. of 
Edinburgh University, and in 1884 he was made an honorary mem- 
ber of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. In 1889, feeling his 
advanced age telling upon him, he resigned the post of secretary to 
the Society of Arts ; and his last paper to this Society, on “ The 
Extension of Brouncker’s Method,” was written in 1890, and read 
by Professor Tait on the 15th December. For some months before 
this he had been failing in bodily health, but his mind was clear 
and undisturbed. Four days before his death he dictated letters, 
and also wrote some himself ; but the end was near, and on the 
23rd of December he died, within a few days of reaching the age of 
86 years. A long-lived race were the Sangs — Robert reached 93 
years, David 88, Edward of Kirkcaldy 91, and Edward, our late 
Fellow, 86, giving an average of close on 90 years for the four 
generations. 
The mourners, who were honoured in having been chosen by 
himself to attend and pay the last tribute of respect at his funeral 
were all sincere friends, who grieved over the loss they had sus- 
tained in the departure of one whom they loved and deeply respected, 
not only as a man, but also for his great and varied learning. 
Few have lived with such an enthusiastic and single-minded 
