of Edinburgh, Session 1871-72. 533 
Dr Fraser Thomson, son of the Rev. Dr William Thomson of 
Perth, and nephew of the late eminent clergyman of Edinburgh, 
Dr Andrew Thomson, the first minister of St George’s parish, 
graduated at the University of Edinburgh, where he had been a 
distinguished student of medicine. He settled as a medical prac¬ 
titioner in his native city, and for most of his life was much 
engrossed by the cares of an extensive practice in town and 
country. But, like many of his profession in our county towns, 
he made natural history his recreation for his short leisure hours, 
and applied himself eagerly to microscopical research in that 
department of science. In this he acquired great expertness and 
accuracy, and would easily have become an original inquirer, were 
it not that his fondness for such pursuits had not fame for its 
object, hut simply relief from the cares and fatigues of professional 
life. He died, after a short illness, in the month of October, in his 
65th year. 
James Sheridan Muspratt, a native of Dublin, was trained in 
the science to which he dedicated his life, under two of the greatest 
chemists of their day in Europe—Graham and Liebig. At the age 
of twenty-three he published the results of investigations carried 
on as a student in Liebig’s laboratory on the sulphites, showing 
their analogy with the carbonates. Returning to Giessen three 
years later, he resumed his inquiries into the sulphur acids, the 
fruit of which was an interesting paper on the Hyposulphites, and 
also on Sulpho-cyanic Ether. In the interval he did good service 
to practical chemistry in this country by making generally known 
in a translation Plattner’s standard work on the Blowpipe; and in 
1854 he published a u Dictionary of Chemistry,” which has been 
of great use in diffusing a knowledge of chemistry among those 
engaged in the practical working of chemical problems. Mr 
Muspratt died in the 47th year of his age. 
Mr Robert Chambers, long one of the most attached and work¬ 
ing Fellows of the Royal Society, is one of the many instances, 
observed at all times in Scotland, of men raising themselves in a 
short time, by the sheer unaided gifts of native talent and indomi¬ 
table perseverance, from an obscure position in society to a promi- 
