Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/302

 Chilian government gave him special exemption from port dues, and privileges of buying stores free of duty. He thus spent two years on the coast of Chili, returning to his native land with his abundant collections.

In 1835 he determined to explore the Philippine Islands, and credentials from the Spanish authorities at Madrid, with his knowledge of the language, placed him at once on the most favourable footing. He was thus able to enlist the services of the clergy and their scholars, who were encouraged to hunt the wood for snails and other shells. Cuming returned after four years' labours, paying passing visits to Malacca, Singapore, and St. Helena. The dried plants amounted to a hundred and thirty thousand specimens; these, with the living orchids, were at once distributed, and his zoological collections also rendered available for science by being placed in museums at home and abroad. He died on 10 Aug. 1865 at his house in Gower Street, London, after long suffering from bronchitis and asthma.

G. B. Sowerby named a genus of bivalved shells Cumingia, after him, in 1833.



CUMMING. [See also and .]

CUMMING, ALEXANDER (1733–1814), mathematician and mechanic, was a native of Edinburgh. He was apprenticed to the watchmaking business, which he carried on with great reputation for many years in Bond Street, London. On retiring from trade he settled in Pentonville, where he had several houses. He was appointed a county magistrate, and elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He continued to pursue his mechanical studies with diligence to the time of his death, which occurred on 8 March 1814. He was the father of James Cumming (d. 1827) [q. v.]

Besides some papers in the ‘Communications to the Board of Agriculture,’ he wrote: 1. ‘The Elements of Clock and Watch Work, adapted to practice,’ London, 1766, 4to. 2. ‘Observations on the Effects which Carriage Wheels, with Rims of different Shapes, have on the Roads’ [London, 1797], 8vo, and 1809, 4to. 3. ‘Dissertation on the Influence of Gravitation, considered as a Mechanic Power,’ Edinburgh, 1803, 4to. 4. ‘The Destructive Effects of the Conical Broad Wheels of Carriages controverted; with the improving effects of cylindrical wheels of the same breadth, as they regard the roads, the labour of cattle, &c.,’ 1804, 4to. 5. ‘A Supplement to the Observations on the Contrary Effects of Cylindrical and Conical Carriage Wheels,’ London, 1809, 4to.



CUMMING, JAMES (d. 1827), official in the India Office, son of Alexander Cumming [q. v.], watchmaker, of Bond Street, entered the service of the board of control in 1793 as a clerk. In 1807 he was appointed head of the revenue and judicial department under the board of control, which post he held until 1823, when he retired with his health broken down by overwork. According to the statement drawn up by himself and published in 1825, with a view to obtaining a pension equal to his salary of 1,000l. a year, he assisted in drawing up the fifth report of the select committee of the House of Commons on the internal government of Madras, for which he was voted a gratuity of 500l. in 1814, and 300l. in 1816. He also quotes in this pamphlet the minute of the board of control on his retirement in 1823, and the testimony of Canning, the Right Hon. John Sulivan, Lord Teignmouth, and Lord Binning to the efficiency of his services. In 1824 Lord Liverpool gave his sister, Miss Cumming, a pension of 200l. a year, after a laudatory notice of his services in a speech of Lord Binning's on the Superannuation Bill in the House of Commons on 12 June 1854. He died at Lovell Hill Cottage, Berkshire, on 23 Jan. 1827, and as in the notice of his death he is spoken of as an F.S.A., he is probably the same James Cumming, F.S.A., who published an edition of Owen Felltham's ‘Resolves’ in 1806, with a dedication to the Duke of Gloucester.



CUMMING, JAMES (1777–1861), professor of chemistry at Cambridge, was descended from the Scotch family of Cumming of Altyre. His grandfather, however, left Scotland after Culloden, and James Cumming was born in England on 24 Oct. 1777. Entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1797, he graduated tenth wrangler in 1801, and became fellow in 1803. He was proctor in 1818. While a student he made many experiments in natural philosophy, and in 1815 he was elected professor of chemistry in succession to Smithson Tennant [q. v.] He was keenly