ously devoted. Robert Chambers was a scientific geologist, and
availed himself of tours in Scandinavia and Canada for the purpose of
geological exploration. The results of his travels were embodied in
_Tracings of the North of Europe_ (1851) and _Tracings in Iceland and
the Faroe Islands_ (1856). His knowledge of geology was one of the
principal grounds on which the authorship of the _Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation_ (2 vols., 1843-1846) was eventually
assigned to him. The book was published anonymously. Robert Chambers was
aware of the storm that would probably be raised at the time by a
rational treatment of the subject, and did not wish to involve his firm
in the discredit that a charge of heterodoxy would bring with it. The
arrangements for publication were made through Alexander Ireland of
Manchester, and the secret was so well kept that such different names as
those of Prince Albert and Sir Charles Lyell were coupled with the book.
Ireland in 1884 issued a 12th edition, with a preface giving an account
of its authorship, which there was no longer any reason for concealing.
The _Book of Days_ was Chambers's last publication, and perhaps his most
elaborate. It was a miscellany of popular antiquities in connexion with
the calendar, and it is supposed that his excessive labour in connexion
with this book hastened his death, which took place at St Andrews on the
17th of March 1871. Two years before, the university of St Andrews had
conferred upon him the degree of doctor of laws, and he was elected a
member of the Athenaeum club in London. It is his highest claim to
distinction that he did so much to give a healthy tone to the cheap
popular literature which has become so important a factor in modern
civilization.

His brother, WILLIAM CHAMBERS (1800-1883) was born at Peebles, on the
16th of April 1800. He was the financial genius of the publishing firm.
He laid the city of Edinburgh under the greatest obligations by his
public spirit and munificence. As lord provost he procured the passing
in 1867 of the Improvement Act, which led to the reconstruction of a
great part of the Old Town, and at a later date he proposed and carried
out, largely at his own expense, the restoration of the noble and then
neglected church of St Giles, making it in a sense "the Westminster
Abbey of Scotland." This service was fitly acknowledged by the offer of
a baronetcy, which he did not live to receive, dying on the 20th of May
1