tion galvanometer, he has provided
the world of thought with the finest instruments of observation and
research, and the world of action with the means of carrying the
messages of commerce and civilisation which have yet to cross the
uncabled oceans that separate the families of the earth."

In 1866, after the Atlantic Telegraph Cable had been successfully laid,
Sir William Thomson received the honour of knighthood from the Crown. On
the same occasion he was presented with the freedom of his adopted
city--Glasgow. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him successively by
Trinity College, Dublin, by Cambridge and by Edinburgh Universities, and
that of D.C.L. by Oxford. He is a Fellow of the London Royal Society, as
well as that of Edinburgh; and he is an honorary and corresponding
member of several learned societies abroad.

On the loss of H.M.S. _Captain_, a Commission was appointed to
investigate the merits of designs for ships of war. Of that Commission
Sir William Thomson is a valuable and valued member, from his intimate
acquaintance with dynamical science and the theory of stability. Sir
William also conducts the operations of two committees appointed by the
British Association to investigate the subject of Tides and Underground
Temperature, the results of which are expected to settle many points of
physical theory. The circumstances of Sir William Thomson's election to
the presidential chair of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, and the remarkably able address which he delivered in opening
the late Edinburgh meeting, are of such recent occurrence that they need
not be recapitulated.

Sir William Thomson married, in 1852, a daughter of the late Walter
Crum, Esq., F.R.S., who has predeceased him. He is a Liberal in
politics, and no one has taken a more active part than he in forwarding
the interests of the Liberal candidates for the representation of the
Universities.

PRINCIPAL BARCLAY.

Cities that bear the dual character of seats of learning and marts of
commerce are comparatively rare. Who would ever dream of finding a
foundry on the Isis, or a factory on the Cam? These streams are sacred
to learning. They are not polluted with the vapours that are evolved
from industrial life. No sounds of the ponderous hammer, or screeching
"buzzer," are to be heard within the range of their pellucid course.
They are consecrated to more lofty, if not to more useful purposes. But
with the Clyde