xxii Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
results of his extensive and elaborate series of observations are 
published in the Minutes of the Town Council for 1888. 
During the winters of 1888-89 be acted as Class Assistant to 
Professor Purdie of the University of St Andrews, and at the same 
time made some experiments on the presence of iodine in sea- 
water. 
The University Extension Scheme found in Mr Burton one of its 
most ardent and hard-working supporters ; and the numerous courses 
of lectures he gave in various places were sufficient proof that his 
support was of a most practical nature. It was while engaged in 
this work that he received the appointment of Professor of Chemistry 
in the Technical School of Shanghai — a post which was quite after 
his own mind. There he felt he would he untrammelled by tradi- 
tions or examination regulations, and could test in practice his 
ideas and theories regarding the teaching of science. Pull of hope 
and enthusiasm, he went out with his young wife in the early 
summer of last year, only to he struck down by a short and fatal 
illness three months after his arrival, and just as he was about to 
start his work, and everything seemed to point to a bright and 
prosperous future. He died of malignant smallpox on the 31st of 
October 1890. 
Mr Burton’s tendencies had always been in a scientific direction, 
hut he had no great liking for conventional methods and programmes 
in the teaching of science. He had a rooted dislike to empiricism, 
preferring to generalise rather than to particularise, which tendency 
was clearly observable in his work. His style of expression was 
terse and clear, and this, along with his skill in experiment, made 
him an attractive lecturer. He was nothing if not practical. He 
had a strong sympathy with the working classes, and conducted 
a most successful course of lectures to working men in Edinburgh. 
Shortly before leaving for China he was engaged, in conjunction 
with his friend Mr Marshall, in a research on the effects of com- 
pression on solids and liquids, the results of which were embodied 
in a paper recently read before the Poyal Society of London. 
This brief summary may suffice to show what we have lost as a 
scientist — a man thorough in all that he did, full of ideas argued 
out on a sound basis, and, above all, devoted to his work. At the 
