217 and he was sent to the college of Aberdeen, where he maintained the same superiority which he had shown in the academy of Brechin. As his limited means made it necessary that he should work for his own support while he underwent the long course of study, he became a successful candidate for the mastership of the parish school of Dun, and after- wards succeeded to the same charge in the more important town of Hawick. Subsequently he be- came one of the teachers of the academy in Cupar- Fife, where he was also for some time editor of the only journal in that thriving town, and finally settled in Montrose as the rector of its academy. He thus while still in youth had continued a course every step in which was an ascent, and qualified himself for the honours and office of a professorship. In Montrose he was too active to confine himself to the ordinary task of rector of the academy; and while he faithfully discharged its duties, so as to secure the affection of his pupils and the confidence of their parents, he commenced that office for which he was best quali- fied, and on which his future fame was chiefly to rest. It was to popularize the abstruse sciences, and make them intelligible to the general mind, which had hitherto been excluded from their mysterious circle by subtle distinctions and an unintelligible nomen- clature. He therefore gave public lectures frequently upon light, heat, electricity, and astronomy; and these difficult subjects he illustrated with such apt experiments and in such eloquent language that all acknowledged this work to be his proper office. After having won such distinction in Montrose and over the whole district as few schoolmasters have achieved, Mr. Nichol, who amidst his profes- sional and other occupations had never ceased to give a few weeks of attendance yearly at the divinity hall of St. Andrews as an irregular or partial student of theology, betook himself to his original destination, and as his prescribed course of college study had expired, he was licensed as a preacher of the gospel. But this was all, for his mind had already acquired a new bias. Even in the theological hall he had been unable to reduce his annual probationary discourses to the common standard of orthodox intelligibility; and a subject in his hands assumed such new forms, and betook itself to such unwonted flights of illustra- tion, that the students were astonished, and even the professor bewildered. The latter, a man of ordinary and matter-of-fact intellect, once endea- voured, at the close of one of these strange disquisi- tions, to deliver the usual critique upon it—but when he opened his mouth it remained open, while not a sound issued from it. Mr. Nichol soon found that neither his varied scientific knowledge nor his re- markable eloquence were of a character or style to win popularity as a preacher, or secure a call to a church, and he wisely resolved to remain a preacher and expositor of religion as unfolded in the gospel of science. He returned therefore with double ardour to the study of astronomy, in which his essays and lectures could always command a willing audience. In 1836 the professorship of astronomy in the university of Glasgow became vacant. This was a chair which had hitherto been of little account, as it had no royal endowment, while the small number of students made its fees a narrow revenue. But on the other hand it gave a high status in the literary world, and might be raised to its proper place by a distinguished occupant. These circumstances in- duced the college to offer, and Mr. Nichol to accept, the appointment. He was now professor of astro- nomy in Glasgow College, with the royal observatory of that city for his place of residence, and his appoint- ment gave great satisfaction both to the students and the public. But while he ably discharged the duties of the chair, he did not circumscribe himself to its limited range. On the contrary, during the months that he was free of his class-room, he was employed as the missionary of the science in the cities, towns, and villages of Scotland, where he expounded the wonders of astronomy as earnestly to the peasantry and mechanics as to the most learned and scientific auditories. With the exception of Dr. Dick, author of the Christian Philosopher; no one perhaps has ever done more to popularize the sciences, and bring them down to the common understanding. His pen was equally active, and his astronomical works, the chief of which were the Architecture of the Heavens, the Planet Neptune, the Cyclopcedia of the Physical Sciences, the Solar System, and the Planetary System, are still too widely known to require further notice. Besides being learned in the exact sciences, Pro- fessor Nichol was distinguished by his general know- ledge and great conversational power, exhibiting in the latter department all the eloquence and aptitude of illustration by which his writings and lectures were distinguished. After a life of such active use- fulness and distinction, he died at Glenburn House, Rothesay, on the 19th of September, 1859, aged fifty-five years. He was twice married, and by his first wife, Miss Tullis, daughter of Mr. Tullis, pub- lisher and printer, Cupar-Fife, he had an only son, John Nichol, B.A. Oxon, who now holds the pro- fessorship of English literature in the university of Glasgow. NICHOLSON, PETER. This skilful architect, whose long life was one of continued usefulness, and whose scientific knowledge was constantly turned to practical results, was born in the parish of Preston- kirk, East Lothian, on the 2othof July, 1765. Even before he had reached his ninth year he had uncon- sciously chosen his future profession, as was mani- fested by his drawings and models of the numerous mills in the neighbourhood of Prestonkirk. When a young school-boy, his scientific tastes so strongly predominated, that mathematics formed the chief object of his study; and his proficiency was so much beyond his years, that, having on one occasion bor- rowed from an elder boy Commadine's Euclid, trans- lated by Cann, in which the engraved diagrams of the eighteenth proposition of the third book were wanting, he supplied the loss by constructing them from the proposition itself. His ardour in these studies was only increased by the difficulty he ex- perienced in obtaining or borrowing works upon the subjects of his inquiry. At the age of twelve Peter Nicholson was taken from the parish school of Prestonkirk, where he had been a pupil for three years, that he might assist in the occupation of his father, who was a stone-mason. But having no liking for this uncongenial work, Peter betook himself to that of a cabinet-maker; and having served a four years' apprenticeship to it at Linton, he repaired to Edinburgh, and afterwards to London, working in both capitals as a journeyman. In the latter city he also commenced teaching at an evening-school in Berwick Street, Soho, and his success in this new profession enabled him to aban- don the making of chairs and tables for more intel- lectual pursuits, as was shown by his first publication, The Carpenter's New Guide, in 1792, the plates of which were engraved by his own hand. In this work the originality and inventiveness by which he was afterwards distinguished were shown in his new method in the construction of groins and niches. His next productions in authorship were the Stu-