7 
1914-15.] Opening Address by the President. 
errors of the Challenger deep-sea thermometers. Mr Omond was also 
a very keen student of geology. In 1883 he was appointed Superintendent 
of the newly erected observatory on the summit of Ben Nevis, and for 
the remainder of his life he was occupied in the work of the observatory. 
After eight years of devoted service both on the summit and at the low- 
level observatory, Mr Omond’s health became so impaired that he was 
compelled to give up the work of observation. He returned to Edinburgh, 
and as Honorary Superintendent of the Ben Nevis Observatory continued 
to control the work and to discuss the observations that had accumulated. 
First in collaboration with Dr Buchan and then by himself he prepared for 
the press all the observations made at Ben Nevis and Fort William; these 
were in due course published in four quarto volumes by our Society. Mr 
Omond contributed several papers to our Society, the more important 
being descriptions and discussions of glories, halos, and coronse as seen from 
the observatory. He was elected a Fellow in 1884; was awarded the 
Keith prize for the biennial period 1889--91, and served on the Council 
from 1901 to 1904. In 1903 he became Honorary Secretary of the Scottish 
Meteorological Society, and the Journal of that Society contains several 
important papers written by him. 
In July 1913 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. of the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh. 
Although hampered in his latter years by a malady brought on during 
his Ben Nevis experiences, Mr Omond retained to the end his cheerful and 
genial disposition ; his humour was inimitable. 
During the last year or two several attacks of influenza seriously 
impaired his physical strength, but he continued in full mental activity 
until a few weeks before his death, which took place on 28th January 1914. 
The foregoing notices of Ordinary Fellows have been prepared by our 
Secretary. 
Sir John Murray, K.C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., was born in Ontario, Canada, 
in 1841, and came to Scotland in 1858. From his earliest years he had 
evinced a strong predilection for natural science, and ten years after his 
arrival here he took the opportunity of visiting Spitzbergen and the 
Arctic regions as a naturalist on board a whaler. The experience thus 
gained in marine investigations, together with certain research work he had 
conducted in Professor Tait’s physical laboratory, led to his appointment 
on the scientific staff of the Challenger Expedition. As might have been 
expected, the four years of that epoch-making expedition determined what 
