JAMESON, ROBERT, distinguished as a naturalist, was b. at Leith, July 11, 1774, and d. in Edinburgh, April 28, 1854. Although originally intended for the medical pro fession, Jameson's strongly-manifested love for the study of animals and plants early led him to devote himself to various branches of natural history. After having given. evidence of considerable ability and indefatigable industry in various able memoirs, he went in 1800 to Freyberg, to study under Werner. He was elected in 1804 to the chair of natural history in the university of Edinburgh; and during the term of his professor ship, numbered among his students many of the best naturalists of the present day. In 1808 he founded the Wernerian society of Edinburgh; and in 1809 brought out lus Ele ments of Geognosy, in which he gave a comprehensive exposition of the ept twin n theory as it had'been modified by 'Werner. In 1819 he founded, in concert with sir David Brewster, the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, and in 1826 the Edinburgh New Philo sophical Journal, of which he continued to be the editor till Ids death. Ills principal
works, in addition to those we have already mentioned, are A System of Mineralogy (1804); A Mineralogical _Description of the County of Dumbctrton,(1805), winch was intended to have been the first of a series of similar works on all the counties of Scotland; Man 'dal of Minerals and Mountain Rocks, etc. (1821); and Elements of Mineralogy (1837). The natural history museum of the university of Edinburgh was largely indebted to tin care and skill of Jameson, for besides having carefully arranged its collections, which had been almost created by his own donations and those of a few other scientific men, he obtained, by his representations to government, an annual grant for its maintenance. Ile was a fellow of almost all the learned societies of Europe.