scholarly journals Welcoming Remarks

Author(s):  
D. M. Henderson

Welcome to Edinburgh and this second symposium on the plant life of SW Asia, supported by the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Botanic Garden and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is fifteen years since the first symposium was held as part of the Garden's tercentenary and now at this occasion you have an opportunity to consider progress, to renew old friendships and to make new ones. That should be easy, for the list of participants shows a wonderful representation from all the countries of SW Asia and also of the institutes in Europe and America involved in SW Asian studies. Unfortunately, not all of our friends are here for since we last met we have lost quite a few: we particularly miss Professor Michael Zohary and Professor Per Wendelbo, who died alas, a relatively young man, far too soon.

1957 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 192-202

Sir William Wright Smith, the eminent botanist, who was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1944 to 1949, died on 15 December 1956, in his eighty-second year. For thirty-four years he held the dual appointment of Regius Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh and Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh; he was also Queen’s Botanist in Scotland. Born at Parkend near Lochmaben on 2 February 1875, the son of a Dumfries-shire farmer, he early acquired the interest in living things and a love for the country, which (though he was to spend the greater part of his life in Edinburgh) remained predominantly with him all his days. His school was the Dumfries Academy where he went till the age of sixteen, when he left for Edinburgh as first University Bursar. Every day he had to travel to school by train, yet he found time to explore his native countryside, and his regard for natural history was by no means confined to plants. For example, he enjoyed watching birds and fishing, or, with one or two companions, guddling for trout or, again, in a leisure hour lying on some sunny bank by a convenient rabbit warren with book and gun. Though not robust he played conventional games, and he was fond of cycling, sometimes covering long distances, once at least more than a hundred miles in one day.


1954 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-200 ◽  

Otto Meyerhof was born on 12 April 1884 in Berlin and died in Philadelphia on 6 October 1951 at the age of 67; he was the son of Felix Meyerhof, who was born in 1849 at Hildesheim, and Bettina Meyerhof, nee May, born in 1862 in Hamburg; both his father and grandfather had been in business. An elder sister and two younger brothers died long before him. In 1923 he shared the Nobel prize for Physiology (for 1922) with A. V. Hill. He received an Hon. D.C.L. in 1926 from the University of Edinburgh, was a Foreign Member (1937) of the Royal Society of London, an Hon. Member of the Harvey Society and of Sigma XI. In 1944 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. Otto Meyerhof went through his school life up to the age of 14 without delay, but there is no record that he was then brilliant. When he was 16 he developed some kidney trouble, which caused a long period of rest in bed. This period of seclusion seems to have been responsible for a great mental and artistic development. Reading constantly he matured perceptibly, and in the autumn of 1900 was sent to Egypt on the doctor’s advice for recuperation.


1887 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-198
Author(s):  
Cargill G. Knott

In the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 1874–75 there is a short paper on the “Electrical Resistance of Iron at a High Temperature.” It is the record of certain experiments made by three of us, then students in the Physical Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh; and its conclusion is that there is a peculiarity in the behaviour of iron as an electric conductor at the temperature of a dull red heat. At this temperature other physical peculiarities are known to exist, particularly as regards its thermal expansion, its thermal capacity, and its specific heat for electricity. The discovery of these striking properties we owe respectively to Dr Gore, Professor Barrett, and Professor Tait.


1882 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 293-294
Author(s):  
Tait

The Chairman closed the session with the following remarks:—I have now, in a very few words, to close this session, and in so doing I beg to remind you that it is the ninety-ninth session of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. This Society, which was originally an offshoot of the University of Edinburgh, was first started, on the suggestion of Principal Robertson, towards the close of 1782. So that in the latter part of next year you will be able to announce your hundredth birthday. The Society came into existence just one year after its late distinguished President, Sir David Brewster, who was born in December 1781. While individuals pass away, age brings no decrepitude, but rather the reverse, to universities and scientific bodies.


As regards the collection of plants, totalling about 3000 numbers, most of the flowering plants and ferns have been identified by the staff of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, mainly by Mr Forman and Professor Holttum. We collected, whenever possible, ten to twelve duplicates and most of these are being distributed to the main herbaria of the world. There are still, nevertheless, many specimens which need monographic revision to establish their true identity. It is impossible, yet, to say how many are new. Professor J. L. Harrison, at the University of Singapore, is still at work on his account of the small mammals and their parasites. Mr Askew is at work on the soil samples. For my part, I have studied the fig collections, and there is nowhere in the world, that I know of, with such a rich fig flora as Kinabalu. It has 78 species (15 endemic), and our expedition discovered 2 new species and 4 new varieties, which fit neatly into gaps in the classification which I have been making. The fig insects are being studied by Dr Wiebes, at the National Museum in Leiden, in our joint effort to write the zoo-botany of Ficus . Already, Dr Wiebes has been able to publish a revision of the insect genus solen which inhabits Ficus sect. Sycocarpus ; he recognizes 32 species of which 23 are new, including 10 from our collections on Kinabalu. I am also at work on the fungi, which have to be collated with my earlier Malayan collections. This work, however, means almost monographic treatment of every group. With the great help of Dr Bas, at the National Herbarium in Leiden, an illustrated account of the genus Amanita in Malaya and Borneo has recently been published. We recognize 22 new species out of a total of 30, and this proportion shows the difficulty of pursuing mycology where there are so few names.


1743 ◽  
Vol 42 (468) ◽  
pp. 325-363

The Author’s first Design, in composing this Treatise, was to establish the Method of Fluxions on Principles equally evident and unexceptionable with those of the antient Geometricians, by Demonstrations deduced after their Manner, in the most rigid Form, and by illustrating the more abstruse Parts of the Doctrine, to vindicate it from the Imputation of Uncertainty or Obscurity.


1743 ◽  
Vol 42 (469) ◽  
pp. 420-421

If the Veneral Disease was never known in Europe till the Siege of Naples 1495, it must have made a very quick Progress through Europe in a short time; for in 1497, I find it raging in Edinburgh , and our King and his Council terribly alarmed at this contagious Distemper, as appears from a Proclamation of King James the IVth, in the Records of the Town-Council of Edinburgh .


Author(s):  
D.P. Wilson

George Alexander Steven was born at Freshwick, Caithness, on 13 April 1901. His boyhood was spent among crofter fisherfolk, and fishing and boats were part of his youthful environment. During 1924–28 he studied Zoology in the University of Edinburgh, being Vans Dunlop Scholar in 1926. After graduation he came to Plymouth, first as student probationer and then, a year later in 1929, he was appointed to the permanent staff of the laboratory. In 1931 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 1952 was awarded the Doctor of Science degree of the University of Edinburgh. After a long illness he died on 7 April 1958 at his home in Yelverton, Devon, leaving a widow and two sons.


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