22 
MEMOIR OF DR. WALKER. 
she never failed to remind him of these poor peti- 
tioners and their claims, in which, to say the truth, 
she took great interest herself. She was an ad- 
mirable woman, and seconded all her husband’s 
useful plans.” 
In 1759 he met Benjamin Franklin, who visited 
Lord Kames that year, and received from him, in 
conversation, the account of the pines and the hic- 
cory, and other trees of America, mentioned in his 
tract, “ Remarkable Trees in Scotland a tract for 
which he must have been collecting materials at 
this time. And to this period, from internal evi- 
dence, though it has no date, I feel inclined to place 
his “ Mineralogical Journal from Edinburgh to El- 
liott,” the tenth of his tracts. 
At Glcncross he also had the good fortune to be 
introduced to Mr. Tytler of Woodhouselee, after- 
wards Lord Woodhouselee, whose friendship he long 
enjoyed, and who, in his “ Life of Lord Kames,” 
when noticing the Doctor’s death, says, that he lost 
in him one of his earliest and most valued friends. 
In the year 1762 he was presented to the parish 
of Moffat by the Earl of Ilopeton, and settled there 
on tho 13th of July, where he continued unremit- 
tingly to pursue his favourite employments, improv- 
ing himself, silently but not unobservedly, till 1 764, 
when he was recommended by Lord Kames to the 
Commissioners of Annexed Estates, as a person most 
eminently qualified by his uncommon natural talents 
and scientific acquirements to make a survey of the 
