1908-9.] Life and Chemical Work of Archibald S. Couper. 235 
His future academic position seemed thus made secure. 
But soon after his entry on his new office, Couper suffered from a 
serious breakdown in health, and for two months was under special 
medical care. On his recovery he went on a fishing expedition, when 
over-exertion and long exposure to the sun caused a return of his illness, 
necessitating retirement and medical treatment for a longer time. Greville 
Williams was therefore quite right in his recollection of a sunstroke. He 
never completely recovered, and was incapable of undertaking any serious 
work, but lived in retirement, tenderly cared for by his mother — at first in 
the old home in the Townhead, and after 1880 in the comfortable house, 
Laurel Bank, Kirkintilloch, which she had built specially as a quiet home for 
him. His father died on the 30th December 1859, in his sixty-second year. 
Couper ’s health seems to have somewhat improved, and he was able to 
take a long walk every day, to converse occasionally with friends, and 
now and then write a letter. Every morning and evening he read aloud to 
the household a chapter of the New Testament, and went regularly to 
church on Sundays. 
He died, unmarried, at Laurel Bank, on the 11th March 1892, almost 
sixty-one years old. 
His mother had the sad satisfaction of nursing him to the end. She 
died at Laurel Bank, 15th April 1895, at the advanced age of ninety-three. 
The house, Laurel Bank, in which Couper lived for twelve years, and 
where he and His mother died, as also the picturesque entrance gate of the 
Kirkintilloch cemetery, where he and his ancestors are buried, are shown 
in the plates taken from photographs by Crum Brown. 
In the history of organic chemistry the sorely tried Archibald Scott 
Couper deserves a place of honour beside his more fortunate fellow-worker, 
Friedrich August Kekule. 
APPENDIX I. 
Recherches sur la benzine ; par M. A. Couper.* 
Supposant qu’il serait possible de transformer la benzine en alcool et en 
glycol phenyliques, j’ai ete conduit a faire avec ce carbure d’hydrogene les ex- 
periences suivantes. 
Lorsqu’on fait arriver dans un appareil convenable, de la vapeur de bronie 
dans de la benzine bouillante, il se degage de l’acide bronihydrique, et l’on obtient 
successivement deux composes bromes, la bromobenzine et la dibromobenzine. 
La bromobenzine (bromine de phenyle), C 12 H 5 Br, passe a 150 degres. C’est 
* Com'ptes rendus, t. xlv. pp. 230-232 (10 aout 1857). 
