346 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
would have rendered services of the most invaluable kind to the 
science of . the age he lived in ; for with his eminent skill, persever- 
ance, and capacity for untiring labour, joined then to ample 
pecuniary resources, he would have followed up most exhaustively 
all the least inviting paths of thought and experiment. And when- 
ever he had traced the objects of his investigation, step by step, both 
back to their sources, and onward to their final outcome and practical 
application, according to his own high ideas of efficiency in research, 
— he would have been equally ready, if the result of his labours 
proved to be something good, true, and workable, to present it as 
a free gift to others ; but if the contrary, to keep all the disappoint- 
ment to himself. And no self-sacrifice in thought or work would 
ever have weighed with him for a moment, if by such devotion he 
foresaw that the road to future success, through any vei y difficult 
labyrinth, would be made safer and straighter for others. But 
without any adventitious aids of either fortune or favour, E. W. 
Dallas did, in fact, to a verj r great extent, fulfil the noble part for 
which he was in a manner designed, and specially end’owed, by 
nature. And living as he did, conscientiously, day by day such a 
life, his soul could not but be advancing jpari passu, and, maturing 
itself to the end of his appointed time here below. 
His own work is finished ; but his rare example has, without doubt, 
even unknown to himself, kindled the spark of progress and self- 
improvement in many another mind that was around him; and his 
noble qualities, not less excelsior in aim, but more practically applied, 
may reappear in his own family, in another, generation, as well as in 
a different field of labour.* 
Dr J f Q. Fleming. By Dr Andrew Wood, Edinburgh. 
Dr Jo>ipr Gibson Fleming, who for many years occupied a 
prominent position in Glasgow as a medical practitioner, at first in 
general practice and latterly as a consultant, was born there on the 
* E. W. Dallas leaves behind him a widow, a son, and two young daughters 
(twelve and five years of age). In the term ending July 1879, his only son 
James passed out of the Royal Academy of Woolwich, first of the commission 
©lass of Cadets. Besides the Pollock gold medal and a sword of honour for 
general good cond uct, he received prizes for excellence in five special subjects, 
lames Dallas in now a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. 
