250 
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
[gray 
Councillor and then a Vice-President in the former Society. 
But it is more especially with regard to the Royal Physical 
Society that his influence for good made itself felt. This 
old Society — the oldest scientific society in Edinburgh with 
the exception of the Royal Medical — in whose meetings men 
like Fleming, Hugh Miller, Goodsir, and Wyville-Thomson 
had taken an active part, a Society with which was incor- 
porated the celebrated Wernerian, and whose special function 
in the encouragement of scientific work cannot fail to be 
recognised, had fallen into one of its periodic fits of lethargy. 
In 1877 the secretaryship became vacant, and fortunately 
for the Society and its work in Edinburgh, Gray was elected 
Secretary, to the inexpressible satisfaction of all those who 
wished the Society well. The effect upon its prosperity was 
magical. He speedily gathered around him a knot of energetic 
friends determined to raise the Society again to its proper 
position ; new rules were drafted, passed, and put into force, 
the meetings became more largely attended, papers of a 
higher class came in, and every year saw the publication of 
a still handsomer fasciculus of Proceedings. This success, . 
which was entirely due to Robert Gray, affords an admirable 
illustration of some of those personal qualities which distin- 
guished him as an individual. He was, in the first place, a 
good man of business, and the Royal Physical Society was 
at the time sorely in need of such a one to gmde it through 
its troubles, financial and otherwise. Then he was not only 
eminent in the one branch of natural history which he had 
adopted as a speciality, but his general scientific sympathies 
were extensive. But it was more especially his human 
sympathies which gained for him the willing co-operation of 
the older members of the Society, and excited the interest 
of the younger, for the love and respect which he diffused 
around him acted as a powerful incentive to others towards 
aiding him in furthering the objects which he had at heart. 
Mr. Gray was one of those very few men who are loved by all 
who know them. It unfortunately falls to the lot of most 
people to know that though they may have on the one side 
