For permission to use and quote manuscripts in their possession or keeping I should like to thank Miss Catherine Armet, Librarian at Mount Stuart; Mr. B. Skinner; the Seafield Trustees; Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, Bt.; Dr. John Imrie, Keeper of The Records of Scotland; Dr. I. G. Brown, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts, The National Library of Scotland; Miss Joan P. S. Ferguson, Librarian, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; Mr. James Baldwin, formerly Keeper of Manuscripts, Glasgow University; and Dr. J. T. D. Hall, Keeper of Special Collections, Edinburgh University.

¹ Medical essays and observations, revised…, 5 vols in 6, 5th edition. T. Caddel, London and J. Balfour, Edinburgh, 1771Google Scholar. Essays and observations, physical and literary, vol. 3, Balfour, J., Edinburgh, 1771Google Scholar; vols. 1 and 2 were also reissued in new editions in 1771.

² The foreign academic memberships and affiliations of the Philosophical Society members are given in the appended membership list. Biographical sketches and a complete list of members can be found in Scotland's Cultural Heritage, ed. R. L. Emerson, (forthcoming).

³ See Emerson, R. L., ‘’The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh 1748–1768’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 1981, 14 (hereafter PSE-2), 153.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

⁴ Franklin, Benjamin to Home, Henry, Kames, Lord, 21 02 1769Google Scholar, Abercairny MSS. Scottish Record Office (hereafter SRO), GD 24.1. 562; The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Willcox, William B., New Haven, 1972, xvi, pp. 46–8.Google Scholar In this letter from London, Franklin informed Kames that he was sending a collection of his books to the Society. For further information on Franklin's contacts with Society members see, Ross, Ian S., Lord Kames and the Scotland of his day, Oxford, 1972, pp. 197–201, 340–1, 356.Google Scholar

⁵ Small, Alexander to Clerk-Maxwell, George, 2 01 1766Google Scholar, Clerk of Penicuik MSS, SRO, GD 18/5492. Small's letter contains a summary on a printed record form of the London weather for December 1765 and the interesting proposal that Customs officers be required to keep barometric and thermometric records ‘to be sent to proper authorities.’ John Rogerson to? (probably George Clerk-Maxwell), 23 August 1772, 22 May 1773, n.d. (? 1774), SRO, GD18/5121/1–3; Clerk-Maxwell, George to Walker, John, 12 05 1774Google Scholar, Laing MSS, Edinburgh University Library (hereafter EUL;, La III. 352.1.

⁶ Erlam, H. D., ‘Alexander Monro, primus’, University of Edinburgh journal, 1953–1954, 17, 88Google Scholar; Monro, Alexander, tertius, Essays and heads of lectures on anatomy, pathology and surgery… with a memoir… by his son and successor, Edinburgh, 1860, p. ciiiGoogle Scholar; Finlayson, C. P., ‘Alexander Monro (Secundus)’ in Gillispie, C. G. (ed.) Dictionary of scientific biography, (hereafter DSB), New York, 1974, ix, 482–4.Google Scholar Monro III says his father resigned his position as Secretary in 1782 and Finlayson says Monro II was sole Secretary after 1763 until the formation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (hereafter RSE) twenty years later. Neither claim is correct.

⁷ The Society's officers are noted on ‘A List of the Members’ published in The London medical register, London, 1779, p. 161–2.Google Scholar A similar list was published in the London medical register for 1780, p. 179–80.Google Scholar

⁸ In neither of the documents concerning these efforts which are discussed below does Robison appear to be a Secretary in May 1778.

⁹ Cullen and Clerk-Maxwell were still spokesmen for the Society in 1782; Keith's and Robison's continuance in office can be inferred from their election to similar posts in the RSE. The Duke of Buccleuch's election as President is recorded; Buccleuch, to Cullen, William, 3 03 1783Google Scholar, Thomson/Cullen MSS, Glasgow University Library (hereafter GUL), Ms. 2255; Cullen, to Walker, John 18 10 1782Google Scholar, EUL, La. III. 352/4; Transactions, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (hereafter TRSE), 1788, i, 10.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The constitution and structure of the RSE adopted 4 August 1783 may well reflect the Philosophical Society's organization at the end of its career. If it does so then a council, and publications committee would have existed; the election of new members would have been semi-annual and they would have been classed as ordinary resident or non-resident and honorary with only the former ‘required to defray, by an annual contribution, the current expenses of the institution.’ Ibid.

¹¹ See Emerson, R. L., ‘The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh 1737–1747’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 1979, 12, (hereafter PSE-1), 162–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹² See Ross, , op. cit. (4), pp. 295–372.Google Scholar

¹³ Shapin, Steven, ‘The Audience for Science in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh’, History of Science, 1974, xii, p. 103.Google ScholarBlack, Joseph to Kames, , 23 05 1775Google Scholar, 15 September 1775, SRO, Abercairny MSS, GD 24.1.553, 142, 139, Ross, , op. cit. (4), p. 363 n.2.Google ScholarReid, Thomas to Kames, , 1 10 1775Google Scholar, loc. cit. (15), GD 24.1.569.13; Reid, Thomas, Philosophical works, SirHamilton, William (ed.), Hildesheim, 1967, i, 52–3.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Shapin, Steven, ‘The Royal Society of Edinburgh: A Study of the Social Context of Hanoverian Science’, University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation, 1971, pp. 150–4Google Scholar; Barron, William to Kames, , 3 05 1777Google Scholar, Abercairny MSS, SRO GD 24.1.585.

¹⁵ For Kames and other members of the Society who sat on these boards see, Smith, Annette M., ‘The Administration of the Forfeited Annexed Estates, 1752–1784’, in Barrow, G. W. S. (ed.), The Scottish tradition. Edinburgh, 1974, pp. 198–210Google Scholar; Wills, V. (ed.), Reports on the Annexed Estates 1755–1769, Edinburgh, 1973Google Scholar; Durie, Alastair J., The Scottish linen industry in the eighteenth century, Edinburgh, 1979Google Scholar, passim. William Smellie's comments on Kames's position on these bodies was short and apt: ‘Lord Kames was remarkable for public spirit, to which he conjoined activity and great exertion. He, for a long tract of time, had the principal management of all our Societies and Boards for promoting the trade, fisheries, and manufacturers in Scotland. As conducive to those ends, he was a strenuous advocate for making and repairing turnpike roads through every part of the country. He had likewise a chief lead in the distribution and application of the funds arising from the estates in Scotland which had unfortunately been annexed to the crown. He was no less zealous in supporting, both with his writings and personal influence, literary associations… [and] was, in some measure, the parent of what was called the Physical and Literary Society.’ Smelile, William, Literary and characteristic! lives …, Edinburgh, 1800, pp. 142–4.Google Scholar

¹⁶ For the British Linen Company and other banks see Checkland, S. G., Scottish Banking: A History, 1695–1973, Glasgow & London, 1975Google Scholar; Munn, Charles W., The Scottish Provincial Banking Companies 1747–1864, Edinburgh, 1981Google Scholar; Shaw, John Stuart, The Management of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1983, pp. 154–63.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Baron Duckham notes the importance of this pamphlet and its relation to increasing demand and production of coal some of which Scots hoped to ship to England; A History of the Scottish coal industry Newton Abbot, 1970, i, 39, 319.Google Scholar

¹⁸ PSE-2, pp. 158–9. Ross, I. S., “Unpublished Letters of Thomas Reid to Lord Kames, 1762–1782”, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 1965, vii, 17–65, 36–65passim.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ross, , op. cit. (4), p. 381.Google Scholar

²⁰ The best biographical work on Cullen remains Thomson, John's An account of the life, lectures and writings of William Cullen, M.D., 2 vols. Edinburgh & London, 1859Google Scholar; the most recent study of his work as a chemist is Donovan, Arthur L.'s Philosophical chemistry in the Scottish enlightenment, Edinburgh, 1975.Google Scholar

²¹ John Clerk of Eldin, ‘Account of Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, Baronet’, TRSE, i, 51–6Google Scholar; Scotland's cultural heritage, Devlin-Thorp, Sheila (ed.), Edinburgh, 1982, i.Google Scholar Most of the later members of the Philosophical Society (hereafter PSE) are noticed in these volumes.

²² Emerson, R. L., ‘The Edinburgh Society for the Importation of Foreign Seeds and Plants 1764 c. 1774’Google Scholar in Science & technology and their cultural contexts, Maccubbin, Robert P. (ed.), in Eighteenth-Century Life, n.s. 2 (1982), pp. 73–95.Google Scholar No list of the members of his society has been found but it was managed by John Hope and probably numbered among its supporters at least the following members of the Philosophical Society: Seafield, Clerk-Maxwell, Dick, Grant, Naysmith, Kames, Monro II, Ankerville and Smollett.

²³ Clerk-Maxwell, to Walker, , loc. cit. (5).Google Scholar

²⁴ Playfair, John, ‘Biographical Account of the late Dr. James Mutton’, TRSE, v, 39–99Google Scholar; also reprinted in facsimile in White, George W. (ed.), Contributions to the History of Geology, v, 141–203; p. 45.Google Scholar

²⁵ Rogerson, John to? Clerk-Maxwell, , loc. cit. (5).Google Scholar

²⁶ Finlayson, , op. cit. (6)Google Scholar; Clair, R. E. Wright-St., Doctors Monro: a medical saga, London, 1964, pp. 69–95.Google Scholar

²⁷ Devlin-Thorp, , loc. cit. (21), i.Google Scholar

²⁸ Hume, David to Robertson, William, 29 05 1759Google Scholar, Klibansky, R. and Mossner, E. C., eds., New letters of David Hume, Oxford, 1954, p. 56–9.Google ScholarDrummond, George to Fletcher, Andrew, Milton, Lord, 26 06 1759Google Scholar, Saltoun Correspondence, National Library of Scotland (hereafter NLS). John Home to Lord Bute,?-? (1759), Bute MSS at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute.

²⁹ ‘… [Russell] besides a consummate knowledge of his Business has a very ingenious turn for mechanical contrivances and is very ready at inventing machines for the Purposes of natural Philosophy so that you may suppose his conversation will not only be very useful to me but also extremely agreeable;’ Black, Joseph to Black, John, 2 12 1752Google Scholar, Black MSS, EUL, Gen. 874/V/6. See also Home, and Drummond, , loc. cit. (28)Google Scholar. Medical and philosophical commentaries, Edinburgh, 1773, ii, 99.Google Scholar

³⁰ Hume, David to Franklin, Benjamin, 10 05 1762Google Scholar, Greig, J. Y. T. (ed.), The letters of David Hume, Oxford, 1969, i, 357.Google Scholar

³¹ The Medical Commentaries, (Edinburgh, 1775, iii, 394–6)Google Scholar printed ‘An Account of Electricity in different Diseases’ by James Saunders a physician in Banff which adds to our knowledge of the Society's work in the 1760s if not earlier: ‘The following cases, the last only excepted were selected from a journal of electrical cases which occurred to me from 1752 to 1761. About that time, [1761–2] they were read by Dr. Cullen in the philosophical society at Edinburgh, and a report of them soon thereafter sent me by Professor Russell…. I was engaged in these inquiries by a correspondence with Dr. St. Clair…, on the success of electricity in the case of one Moubray from Stirling, an infirmary-patient.’ Saunders went on to relate his work to reports and comments on the medical uses of electricity by Nollet, Munsch, De Haen and Van Swietan. His last reported case was dated November 1772.

³² Playfair, John, ‘Biographical Account of the late John Robison …’, TRSE, vii, pp. 495–539Google Scholar; Dorn, Harold, ‘John Robison’, in DSB, op. cit. (6), xi, 495–8.Google Scholar

³³ Many of his letters to Joseph Black and James Watt are contained in Robinson, Eric and Mckie, Douglas (eds.), Partners in science: letters of James Watt and Joseph Black, Cambridge (Mass.), 1970.Google Scholar

³⁴ Playfair, , op. cit. (32), p. 513.Google Scholar

³⁵ A good history of this company exists: Campbell, R. H., Carron company, Edinburgh, 1961.Google Scholar

³⁶ What is known about Macgown is summarized in Devlin-Thorp, , op. cit. (21), iGoogle Scholar. and Emerson, et al. , op. cit. (2); TRSE, 1788, i: 333–5.Google Scholar

³⁷ Devlin-Throp, , op. cit. (21), i.Google Scholar

³⁸ Kames, Lord, The gentleman farmer; being an attempt to improve agriculture, by subjecting it to the test of rational principles, 5th ed., Edinburgh, 1802 (1st ed. 1776), p. 405–6.Google Scholar

³⁹ Cullen, William, ‘Memorial for the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh’Google Scholar, Cullen MSS, Gul, Box 9.7.

⁴⁰ Op. cit. (7).

⁴¹ TRSE, p. 11.Google Scholar

⁴² Cullen's ‘Memorial’ refers to ‘above Sixty Members of the Society’ in which he very likely included some of the honorary members since in 1779 the Society had on its published list sixty-five names of which nine (including Benjamin Franklin) were foreigners; another seventeen Scots and Englishmen can be presumed to have been non-resident. The list may not be complete since it names only one James Lind (b. 1716) and omits William Franklin. The list of members in 1783 can be partially inferred from that given of those belonging to the RSE in November 1783 and published in TRSE, i, 83–100.Google Scholar This shows thirty-five resident members (to which Lord Buchan should perhaps be added), twenty-one nonresidents and fourteen foreign honorary members.

⁴³ Lorentz Crell seems to have been elected between April and August 1782; Crell, to Black, Joseph, ? 04 1782Google Scholar; 5 August 1782, EUL, Gen. 873/II/48–51.

⁴⁴ Robison, John to Walker, John, 13 09 1785.Google Scholar EUL Laing MSS, La. III. 352: ‘I have just the following papers left in my hands by the Members of the Philosophical Society’; this is followed by a list of ten essay titles of which six were noted as having reports with them.

⁴⁵ Gray, James, The History of the Royal Medical Society 1737–1937, Edinburgh, 1952, p. 77.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Arnot, Hugh, The History of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, 1779, pp. 427–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Op. cit. (39). Thomson wrongly through this Memorial was related to a scheme of incorporation for the Society; op. cit., (20), ii, 218.

⁴⁸ PSE-1, pp. 180–1; PSE-2, pp. 133–4. See Tables 1 and 2 which show declines in the numbers of known and conjectured topics of discussion. Playfair's ‘Account of John Robison’, (op. cit. (36)), has dates for the Society's decline which are clearly wrong: the Society ‘… had published three volumes of Memoirs, under the title of Physical and Literary Essays; the last in 1756 [read 1771] from which time the Society had languished, and its meetings had become less frequent. At the time I am now speaking of[c. 1774 but really 1778], it was beginning to revive, and its tendency to do so was not diminished by the acquisition of Mr. Robison, who became a member of it soon after his arrival [in 1774].

⁴⁹ James Hutton was admitted to the Society in 1768. In 1779 only seven names stood between his and Robison's on the published membership list and none were, for reasons of age and residence, likely to have been added before 1771. Since Robison's name is preceded by those of Dugald Stuart and William Smellie, who probably joined c. 1775, Robison too may not have been immediately elected because of a lack of regular meetings. On 1 August 1810, Andrew Duncan wrote Smellie's son Alexander, ‘… I believe in the year 1776, I proposed your father as a member of the Philosophical Society, where I had often the satisfaction of receiving much instruction and entertainment from his papers and observations.’ Kerr, Robert, Memoirs of the life, writings, and correspondence of William Smellie, Edinburgh, 1811, ii, 242.Google Scholar Smellie was definitely a member by 1778. Medical Commentaries, op. cit. (31), V, 338.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Some resignations clearly were received. By 1779 Boswell, Brydone, Fell, Horseburgh, Lind (b. 1736), Livingstone, MacFait, Ankerville, Skene and Swain were no longer on the roster although seven are known to have been living. Between 1779–80 no one seems to have resigned but Bute, Brownrigg, Bryce, Clason, Lindsay and Wilson, although alive, had either resigned by 1783 or chose not to accept membership in the Royal Society of Edinburgh since their names are missing from its first published ‘List of all Members or Fellows’, TRSE, i, 83–97.Google Scholar

⁵¹ The Medical and philsophical commentaries and its successors are noticed by Couper, W. J. in The Edinburgh periodical press, Stirling, 1908, ii, 122–130Google Scholar; and by Comrie, John D., History of Scottish medicine, London, 1932, ii, 507–8.Google Scholar The name Medical commentaries was adopted in 1780 in volume VII. The Scots magazine's, account of the new journal in April 1773 stated that Duncan was ‘secretary to our society’; ibid., xxxv, 204–5.

⁵² For example, Lorentz Crell in 1779 sent Black an article ‘to be inserted into the Medical Commentaries’; Crell, to Black, , 24 10 1779Google Scholar, Black MSS, EUL, Gen 873/I/93–6.

⁵³ Couper, , op. cit. (51), p. 123.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Medical Commentaries op. cit. (31), iv, 117, 460Google Scholar; v, 326, 453; vi, 177.

⁵⁵ Cullen, , op. cit. (39)Google Scholar, Thomson, , op. cit. (20), ii, 218–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ In the margin Cullen wrote ‘Intrants to be subjected to it as a law except Associé libre’. Since this was a designation hitherto unknown in the Society, Cullen may have had in mind some redefinition of the categories of membership which would have expanded the numbers of non-resident men of science not qualifying for merely honorary affiliation. For the definition of this rank in the Académie Royale des Sciences of Paris see, Hahn, Roger, The Anatomy of a scientific institution: the Paris academy of sciences, 1666–1803, Berkely, Los Angeles, London, 1971, pp. 77–8.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Cullen at first wrote ‘twenty’ and then scratched it out.

⁵⁸ The draft ends rather abruptly on its seventh folio page without a period; this page is also unnumbered but the whole neatly folded packet has on its outside the full title with a line under it. Cullen's mention of only one Secretary may be significant.

⁵⁹ Robison's letter about the proposals is dated 6 May 1778, the day before the scheduled May meeting. On 7 May 1778, Smellie, Duncan, Gregory, Rutherford, Dugald Stewart, Russell, Wardrop, Keith, Hope and Gardiner formed the Newtonian Club. They met again, probably after the Society's meeting, on 18 June (the date called for by Cullen's Memorial’) and adopted six rules, two of which (I, VI) almost certainly record a protest against complex changes in the Society's regulations. Smellie and Duncan were later supporters of the Society of Antiquaries and both had frustrated professorial ambitions, in Duncan's case by James Gregory in 1776 and in Smellie's by John Walker later in 1778. Kerr, Robert, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Correspondence of William Smellie, Edinburgh, 1811, i: pp, 132–4, 146–163.Google Scholar Duncan recounted his own problems in the Medical commentaries iv, 99–107, 244–5.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ The Medical Register account of the Society in 1779 may reflect both a. revival and a very limited constitutional change.

⁶¹ TRSE, i, 6Google Scholar; this ‘History of the Society’ was reprinted in TRSE: general index to the first thirty-four volumes (1783–1888), Edinburgh, 1890, p. 3.Google Scholar This revival like the earlier one in the 1750s may have involved the preparation of a new volume of essays. Such a volume never appeared but seems to be mentioned in Medical commentaries, 1778, v, p. 218Google Scholar and The London medical register, 1779, p. 161.Google Scholar Arnot's account of the Society mentioned above (46) may also be referring to this project.

⁶² PSE-1, pp. 164–5; PSE-2, pp. 148–150.

⁶³ These thirty-five men exclude Matthew Gutherie, James Byres, and John Rogerson and Andrew Lumsden, who, although they were Scots, made their careers outside Scotland. Also excluded are Edward Stevens, a West Indian of Scottish extraction and two Englishmen, James Amyatt and Sir James Adolphus Oughton. K. B. Byres was a Jacobite in exile in Rome who served a short time in the French service as a Lieutenant in Ogilvie's Regiment and later made a notable career as an architect and dealer in antiquities. Lumsden, who trained as a Writer, was once secretary to Prince Charles Edward Stuart. Pardoned in 1778 he lived in Paris throughout most of this period. The Gutheries were also a Jacobite family but Matthew went to Russia in 1770 as a young surgeon seeking employment, not as an exile. This was also the case with Dr. John Rogerson. Stevens was in Edinburgh as a medical student and physician between 1774–80 and later taught the practise of medicine at what is now Columbia University. All of these men came from respectable families. The fathers of Lumsden and Gutherie were Writers to the Signet; Rogerson's was apparently a physician, Stevens's a merchant with plantations.

⁶⁴ Nicholas Phillipson has traced declining matriculations of Scottish law students at Dutch universities and the rising numbers of the ‘sons of “non-landed” men’ in the Faculty of Advocates during these years: ‘Lawyers, Landowners, and the Civic Leadership of Post-Union Scotland’, Juridical Review, 1976, 21 NS, 97–120.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Comrie quotes Benjamin Bell on the continuing need for surgeons to travel: ‘Had I been now entering to the world as a physician [c. 1770], I should never have thought of going farther than where I have been; but for a surgeon, I assure you Edinburgh comes greatly short of either Paris or London and for that reason, Dr. Monro and any others that I have spoke to here upon the subject approve of the scheme very much.’ Bell spent the years 1770–2 in London and Paris. Earlier in the eighteenth century this would not have been thought necessary and was in any case beyond the means of most surgeons who were also less specialized as saw-bones, Comrie, , op. cit. (51), i, 331.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ PSE-1. p. 171.

⁶⁷ The age at presumed entrance is known for twenty-eight of the thirty-five recruits. Their average ages were 31.8 with the median falling between 32 and 31.

⁶⁸ Four were not married, five are unknowns and the average age of marriage for sixteen of the rest is 29.

⁶⁹ James Hutton is included here although he practised farming more than medicine.

⁷⁰ There were 108 Britons in the Society during this period if Benjamin Franklin and his son William are excluded.

⁷¹ The Earl of Hopctoun's papers show him consulting Clerk-Maxwell, Hutton and Blackin 1771–3 about a gold mine, coal and lead deposits containing some silver. Linlithgow MSS, SRO TD78/169/ Box/122/bundle 611; Box 122/bundle 347.

⁷² Black's papers at EUL and the Erskine-Murray MSS at NLS make it clear that between 1759 and 1783 Black was consulted on mining affairs by many groups or individuals among whom were included not only Hopetoun, Hutton and the Clerk brothers but also Roebuck, Crosbie and Stirling. See also, McKie, Douglas and Kennedy, David, ‘On some letters of Joseph Black and others’, Annals of science, 1960, 16, pp. 129–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷³ See, Walker, John, Lectures on geology including hydrography, mineralogy, and meteorology, with an introduction to biology, ed. Scott, Harold W., Chicago, 1966.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ The best general discussion of the philosophers' involvement in industry is still that of Archibald and Clow, Nan, The Chemical revolution, London, 1952Google Scholar (Freeport, N.Y., 1970). For Black and Robison see Robinson, and McKie, , op. cit. (33).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Roebuck's career is sketched by Clow, A. in DSB, op. cit. (6), xi, 499.Google Scholar His work for the Carron Co. is discussed by Campbell, , op. cit. (35), passim.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Robison, John to Watt, James, 22 04 1771Google Scholar (O.S.), in Robinson, and McKie, , op. cit. (33), p. 24.Google Scholar Perhaps the Society members’ concern with this company accounts for ‘dr. Hutton ['s paper] on Theories of Artillery’ which Robison still had in hand in 1785. Robinson, to Walker, John, loc. cit. (44).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ The Clows printed part of a letter from Hope, John to Boulton, Matthew, 22 05 1784Google Scholar which describes an Oyster Club meeting attended by ‘Henry Cort, Lord Dundonald, Hutton, Black, MacGowan, etc. Dr. Hutton whispered to me, what a number of projectors, and Black said I was a fool of one myself. We had as usual a great deal of pleasantry and every now and then some useful and interesting information.’ Clow, and Clow, , op. cit. (74), 415.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ See (22).

⁷⁹ Much of this Scottish discussion is analyzed in essays contained in Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael (eds.), Wealth and virtue: the shaping of political economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, Cambridge, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁰ Munro, Neil, The History of the Royal Bank of Scotland, 1727–1927, Edinburgh, 1928, pp. 397–403Google Scholar; see also (16).

⁸¹ Scots magazine, 1772, xxxiv, pp. 304–11, 637; 1773 xxxv, 668.Google Scholar

⁸² Among those active in the Commissions appointed to build the new exchange, to improve Leith harbour and to provide better streets, light and water to the city were Hopetoun, Kames, Sir Alexander Dick, and Alexander Monro II. Black also was consulted by the city about the purity of its water sources.

⁸³ Scots magazine, 1767, xxix, 253–4Google Scholar; 1768, xxx, 289–90; 360.

⁸⁴ Scots magazine, 1768, xxx, 292–3.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Ibid., p. 293–296. John Walker between 1765 and 1767 was also trying to promote interest in a ‘Navigation between the Murray [Moray] Firth and the Sound of Mull’, which he also saw as having all of these good effects. The later Caledonian Canal fulfilled this dream but did not bring the hoped for social consequences. ‘Memorial concerning the proposed navigation’, Walker Papers, Laing MSS EUL La III. 352.1.

⁸⁶ Peers, expatriates and colonials have been excluded from these calculations.

⁸⁷ PSE-1, p. 171; PSE-2, p. 142.

⁸⁸ Of the 110 British and colonial members of the Society after 1768 at least fifty-seven (51·8%) held some sort of civil, naval or military, ecclesiastical or municipal office. Ten others had hospital appointments and five professorships and three clerical livings could well be added to this total. The thirty Scottish civil orfice holders were in only eleven cases occupying offices with patronage power or supplying their incumbents with salaries in excess of £200. Again, the professorships also possessed by many members somewhat complicates this picture which is also affected to some extent by the relative youth of the men recruited after 1768.

⁸⁹ Cullen, Willian to Mure, Baron William, 19 09 1770Google Scholar, Selections from the family papers preserved at Cladwell. Paisley, 1885, ii, II, 176–7?Google Scholar; Chalmers, Robert, A Biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, Glasgow, 1856, ii, 170Google Scholar; Gray, James (ed. by Gutherie, Douglas), History of the Royal Medical Society, Edinburgh, 1952, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Shapin, , op. cit. (14), p. 155–157.Google ScholarWalker, John to Dalrymple, David, 28 02 1778Google Scholar, Newhailes MSS, XLS, 7228/24.

⁹¹ sMedical Commentaries, op. cit. (35), iii, 445; V, 106.Google Scholar

⁹² The Moderates are the subject of a monograph by Richard Sher whose work supports this conclusion. See Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: the Modem Literati of Edinburgh 1720–1800, Princteon University Press, 1985.Google Scholar

⁹³ Essays and observations physical and literary (hereafter EOPL), Edinburgh, 1771, iii, Nos. 25, 31; pp. ix–xiii, xvi–xvii, xviii–xx.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Scots magazine, 1768, xxx, pp. 511–12Google Scholar, ‘On Stewart's method of determining the sun's distance’; 1770, xxxii, p. 120Google Scholar, ‘Queries relating to lime used as a manure’; pp. 172–4Google Scholar, ‘Memorial concerning the contagious disease affecting the horned cattle’; pp. 382Google Scholar, notice of Donald Monro's ‘A treatise of mineral waters’; p. 408Google Scholar, ‘Some account of … Venus's FLY-TRAP’; 1771, xxxiii, pp. 399–400Google Scholar, excerpts from EOPL iii, No. 30; pp. 426Google Scholar, ‘Animadversions on Dr. Stewart's computation of the sun's distance from the earth’; 1772, xxxiv, passimGoogle Scholar; Agricola's essays by James Anderson on planting and husbandry.

⁹⁵ Medical Commentaries, i, 432Google Scholar; this was later published, TRSE ii, 1790, pp. 59–72.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Ibid., v, 111–3.

⁹⁷ TRSE, ii, 1790, p. 73–79.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Medical Commentaries, 1778, v, 218–9.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ This paragraph draws on information given in more detail in Emerson, , op. cit. (26).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Hope, John to Loudoun, Lord, n.d. (1766)Google Scholar, Loudoun MSS, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute.

¹⁰¹ Hope, to Loudoun, Lord, 17 10 1776Google Scholar, loc. cit. (105).

¹⁰² Scots magazine, 1767, xxix, p. 166Google Scholar; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1769, 59, pp. 241–2Google Scholar; The Weekly magazine or Edinburgh amusement, v, 19 10 1769Google Scholar; V. A. and Eyles, Joan, ‘Some Geological correspondence of James Hutton’, Annals of science, 1951 7, pp. 316–336, 328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰³ Scots magazine, 1765, xxvii, p. 334; 1766, xxviii, p. 280Google Scholar; 1767, xxix, p. 327; Fletcher, Harold R. and Brown, William H., The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670–1970, Edinburgh, 1970, p. 61Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Ibid., pp. 62–3.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid., pp. 59–60.

¹⁰⁶ TRSE, 1788, i, 15, 17Google Scholar; Allen, D. G. C. and Schofield, Robert E., Stephen Hales: scientist and philanthropist, London, 1980, p. 134.Google Scholar A fragment of this paper exists in manuscript at the NLS and shows that Walker's experiments were made as early as 1 February 1761. Saltoun Papers, NLS, S Misc. 54.

¹⁰⁷ SirNaysmith, James to Kames, Lord, 8 11 1773Google Scholar (instincts in plants and animals), 26 October 1776 (on locomotion), Abercairny MSS, SRO, GD 24/1/576; Kames to John Walker, n.d. (early 1770s), EUL Laing MS La III. 352/4; Kames, , op. cit. (4), pp. 413–38.Google Scholar The Medical Commentaries 1779, vi, 177–9Google Scholar printed an account of ‘the moving plant, the seeds of which were also sent’ to the Botanical Garden by [?William] Kerr who ‘favoured us with the following account of it, transmitted from India.’ See also Kames, , op. cit. (38), pp. 413–38.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Walker, , loc. cit. (107).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Robison, John to Walker, John, loc. cit. ‘48)Google Scholar; Miscellaneous Papers of John Walker, EUL, DC.2.39.1 no. 13, has descriptions of eight species of tremella.

¹¹⁰ The papers of Lord Hopetoun contain a number of essays on Russian topics including an ‘Account of Russia’, a ‘Natural History of Russia’ and several pieces on Russian mines. Linlithgow MSS, SRO TD78/169/box 122 bundle 347. Matthew Gutherie was a frequent contributor to the Medical Commentaries and a naturalist as well as an MD. See also, Sweet, Jessie M., ‘Matthew Guthrie (1743–1807). An Eighteenth-Century gemmologist’, Annals of science, 1964, 20, 245–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Papmehl, K. A., ‘Matthew Guthrie The Forgotton student of 18th century Russia’, Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne de Slavists, 1969, xi, 167–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Devlin-Thorp, , op. cit. (21), 3Google Scholar, ‘John Grieve’.

¹¹¹ Medical Commentaries, op. cit. (35), 1778, v, 434Google Scholar; Medical Commentaries for theyears 1780, 1781, 1782, Philadelphia, 1795, p. 488.Google Scholar

¹¹² PSE-2, p. 159.

¹¹³ See n. 27.

¹¹⁴ Devlin-Thorp, , op. cit. (21), iGoogle Scholar, ‘James Anderson’; James Anderson to William Cullen, 8 December 1782, ‘I have a paper ready to send to the Philosophical Society …’ Anderson expected to be in Edinburgh in the spring and seemed to be then very interested in ‘a set of machines for carrying on the woolen manufacture’ although he did not write that the paper concerned these. Cullen Correspondence, Royal College of Physicians Library. Vol. 32.

¹¹⁵ Willcox, William B. et al. (eds.), The papers of Benjamin Franklin, New Haven and London, 1972, xv, 50, 60–2Google Scholar; Franklin, to Kames, , 16 01 1769Google Scholar, ibid., 1972, xvi, 3. In this letter Franklin told Kames that James Russell and George Clerk-Maxwell could ‘give you as good Advice’ about smoky chimnies as could the ‘universal smoke Doctor’ himself. In 1776 James Anderson published A practical treatise on chimneys containing full direction for preventing or removing smoke in houses, Edinburgh, 1776.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Robison, to Walker, , loc. cit. (44)Google Scholar. The paper was not surprisingly, byjohn Macgowan; stoves and grates were a principal manufacture of the Carron Company. Campbell, , op. cit. (35), p. 77.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Campbell's account of the development of the carronade between 1776 and 1779 shows why there might well be an interest in guns. Ibid., p. 88–94.

¹¹⁸ Pulteney, William Johnstone to Kames, , 10 05 1771Google Scholar, Abercairny MSS, SRO CD 24.1.574. Two memorials on coal and culm, one from Kames sent to Lord Seafield but undated, exist in the Seafield Papers, SRO, GD248/954/5/ 35, 41.

¹¹⁹ Historial Manuscripts Commission, Report 14, App. 3, London, 1894 Manuscripts of the Countess Dowager of Seafield, pp. 229–30.

¹²⁰ Playfair, , op. cit. (24), p. 48–9Google Scholar; Duckham, , op. cit. (17), p. 37.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Robison, to Walker, John, loc. cit. (44)Google Scholar; Robison, ‘Report to the philosophical Society Concerning Dr. Stedman's Instrument for measuring the Inclination of the Ground in Earthquakes’, EUL La III 352/1.

¹²² EOPL, iii, No. 9. This paper was read in the Society 14 January 1765.

¹²³ Philosophical Transactions, 1777, 67, pp. 493–503.Google Scholar Stedman was primarily concerned to assess the probable usefulness of windmills in draining coal mines.

¹²⁴ Ibid., 1775, 65, pp. 353–365.

¹²⁵ Lind, James (b. 1736) to Lord Loudoun, 27 10 1764Google Scholar, Loudoun MSS, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute.

¹²⁶ Lind, James to Loudoun, Lord, 23 06 1769, loc. cit. (125).Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Philosophical Transactions, 1778, 67, 725–6.Google Scholar

¹²⁸ Medical Commentaries, 1775, iii, 25–32Google Scholar; DeLuc, Jean André to Cullen, William, 9 04 1773Google Scholar, 13 ‘8bre’ 1773, Thomson/Cullen MSS, GUL. 2255/84; Playfair, , op. cit. (24), pp. 65, 69.Google Scholar Cullen had collected subscriptions for DeLuc, 's Recherches sur les modifications de l'atmosphere, Geneve, 1772.Google Scholar The Society had in the past been used as a subscription collection agency. See, Wallis, P. J., ‘The MacLaurin “Circle”: The evidence of Subscription Lists', The Bibliotheck, 1982, ii, pp. 38–54.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ Philosophical Transactions, 1774, 64, pp. 105–7; 1771, 61 pp. 326–31.Google Scholar Experiments with cold were also reported by Wilson's son Patrick in 1780, ibid., 1780, 70, pp. 450–73; TRSE, 1788, i, 22Google Scholar; The Black papers at EUL contain numerous letters from Alexander and Patrick Wilson from 1768, 1780–1 dealing with ‘Thermometrical Observations & Experiments’ concerning cold and heat.

¹³⁰ TRSE, 1790, ii, 14–16.Google Scholar

¹³¹ EOPL, iii, pp. ix–xxiiGoogle Scholar; Philosophical Transactions, 1775, 65, pp. 459–62Google Scholar; ibid., 1778, 68, pp. 564–5. Roebuck's interest in mean temperatures related to agricultural interests in crops ideally suited to different climates.

¹³² Playfair, , op. cit. (24), pp. 62–66.Google Scholar

¹³³ Philosophical transactions, 1775, 65, pp. 296–300Google Scholar; 1778, 68, pp. 318–343.

¹³⁴ Dr. William Keir's Edinburgh medical thesis (1778) was entitled, ‘De Attractione chemica’; his Society paper was ‘on Chemical Saturation.’ Dr. Daniel Rutherford in 1772 produced a well known thesis ‘De Aere fixo’ and a paper ‘on Nitre’. See (44). See also, Duncan, A. M., ‘William Keir's de Attractione chimica 1778 and the concepts of chemical saturation, attraction and repulsion’, Annals of Science 1967, 23, pp. 149–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³⁵ Medical Commentaries, 1773, i, pp. 102, 320Google Scholar; 1775, iii, p. 102; Philosophical transactions, 1775, 65, pp. 124–8.Google ScholarGutherie, Matthew to Walker, John, 23 01 1783Google Scholar, Black MSS, EUL. Gen 873/11/83–6F.

¹³⁶ Surviving correspondence allows one to infer that the following men had or had access to telescopes: Buchan, Hopetoun, Bute, Stuart-Mackenzie, Bryce, Brydone, Lind (b. 1736), Alemore, Ramsay, Russell, Matthew and Dugald Stewart, Stirling, Wilson; Playfair and Robison.

¹³⁷ On 25 July 1776 ‘the Lord Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh, attended by the Principal and Professors of the University, went to the Caltonhill, and laid the foundation-stone of the Observatory, which is to be erected there, according to a plan proposed by the Professor of Natural Philosophy, and designed by Mr. James Craig, architect.’ The Scots magazine went on to describe the building and equipment. It did not note the presence of the quadrant given by Hopetoun to the Philosophical Society, Morton's contribution to an observatory or any money raised by Colin MacLaurin for this purpose. Scots magazine, 1776, xxxviii, 393–4.Google Scholar The sorry history of this new observatory, which remained virtually useless until c. 1812, is recounted by SirGrant, Alexander, The story of the University of Edinburgh, London, 1884, i, 378–80.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ ‘… Lord Alemore has built me an observatory at his house at Hawkhill where we had the good fortune to have a very favorable day to make our observations [of the Transit of Venus].’ James Lind (b. 1736) to Lord Loudoun, 23 June 1769, Loudoun MSS, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute; Philosophical Transactions, 1769, 59, pp. 339–46.Google Scholar Observations were also reported by Alexander Wilson, ibid., pp. 333–8. That the preparation lor these observations had been long in the making is suggested by notices in the Edinburgh papers about preparations elsewhere, e.g., Scots magazine, 1768, xxx, p. 288.Google Scholar This reprints a letter from J. de Stehlin, Secretary of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Petersburg to James Short who with Lord Morton had helped to organize the British observations.

¹³⁹ Philosophical Transactions, 1769, 59, pp. 363–5Google Scholar; 1773, 63, 163–70; 1774, 64, pp. 1–30. Lind, James to Loudoun, Lord, 2 09 1769Google Scholar, Loudoun MSS. Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute.

¹⁴⁰ EOPL, III, No. 5.

¹⁴¹ Examples of such systematic views are common; e.g. Scots magazine January 1762, unpaginated table bound after the fly-leaf and explained on pp. iii–xii.

¹⁴² This development is traced by Dwyer, John and Murdoch, Alexander in ‘Paradigms and politics: Manners, morals and the rise of Henry Dundas, 1770–1784’, in New perspectives on the politics and culture of early modern Scotland, ed. Dwyer, John, Mason, Roger A., Murdoch, Alexander, Edinburgh, 1982, pp. 210–48Google Scholar and by Shaw, John, op. cit. (16).Google Scholar

¹⁴³ Of the men recruited to the Society after 1768 only five seem to have sat in the General Assembly before 1784. Of their older colleagues in those years twelve did so and for many more years.