Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/30

Findlay department of the admiralty was not able to surpass, and he executed a series of charts universally known and appreciated by the mercantile marine. The Society of Arts awarded Findlay its medal for his dissertation on 'The English Lighthouse System.' Subsequently he published 'Lighthouses and Coast Fog Signals of the World.' At the time of Sir John Franklin's catastrophe he carefully sifted all the probable and possible routes, and as a member of the Arctic committee of the Royal Geographical Society materially assisted in preparing the arguments which induced the government to send out the Alert and Discovery expedition of 1875. On the death of Laurie, the London geographical and print publisher, in 1858, Findlay took up his business, which soon sprang into renewed activity under his guidance, and in 1885, on the dispersal of the navigation business of Van Keulen of Amsterdam, founded in 1678, it became the oldest active firm in Europe for the publication of charts and nautical works. Findlay devoted much time to the labours of his friend, Dr. Livingstone, in central Africa, and he also carefully investigated the question of the sources of the Nile. For the record of the Burton and Speke explorations in the lake regions of central equatorial Africa during 1858-9 he constructed a map of the routes traversed. He also wrote a paper on the connection of Lake Tanganyika with the Nile, accompanying it by a comparative series of maps relating to the northern end of the lake. Findlay served on various committees appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and contributed the following papers to section E : at Liverpool in 1853, 'On the Currents of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans;' Exeter, 1869, 'On the Gulf Stream, and its supposed influence upon the Climate of N.-W. Europe.' In 1844 Findlay was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and soon became an active member of its council and committees. To the 'Journal' of the society he contributed several papers, as well as to the 'Transactions of the Royal United Service Institution,' and to the 'Transactions of the Society of Arts.' Findlay's services were pronounced equally worthy of remembrance with those of Arrowsmith and Petermann. In 1870 the Società Geografica Italiana elected him one of its foreign honorary members. Findlay's various publications embrace a total of no less than ten thousand pages, all of which are in active use. He died at Dover on 3 May 1875. [Royal Geographical Society's Journal, vol. xlv. 1875; Athenæum, May 1875; Bookseller, June 1875; private memoranda.]  FINDLAY, ROBERT, D.D.(1721–1814), Scotch divine, son of William Findlay of Waxford, Ayrshire, born 23 Nov. 1721, was educated at Glasgow, Leyden, and Edinburgh, and was ordained a minister of the kirk of Scotland in 1744. He had charges successively at Stevenston (1743), Galston (1745), Paisley (1754), and St. David's Church, Glasgow (1756), was appointed professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow in 1782, and died 15 June 1814. He published in the 'Library' for July 1761 'A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Kennicott vindicating the Jews from the Charge of Corrupting Deut. xxvii. 4,' which, on Kennicott's replying in the 'Library,' he followed up with 'A Second Letter to Dr. Kennicott upon the same subject, being an Answer to the Remarks in the "Library" for August 1761, and a further illustration of the argument.' This letter he sent to the 'Library;' but the editor of that magazine having had enough of the controversy, it appeared separately in January 1762. Both letters were signed 'Philalethes.' A more ambitious task next engaged Findlay's attention, viz. an examination of the views on the credibility of Josephus and the Jewish and Christian Scriptures propounded by Voltaire in his 'Philosophie de l'Histoire.' This work appeared under the title of ' A Vindication of the Sacred Books and of Josephus, especially the former, from various misrepresentations and cavils of the celebrated M. de Voltaire,' Glasgow, 1770, 8vo. Findlay also published a pamphlet on 'The Divine Inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures and Old Testament,' London, 1803, 8vo. [Irving's Book of Eminent Scotsmen; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Cleland's Annals of Glasgow, ii. 114; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. ii. 26, 116, 187, 203.]  FINET or FINETT, JOHN (1571–1641), master of the ceremonies, was son of Robert Finet of Soulton, near Dover, Kent, who died early in 1582. His mother was Alice, daughter and coheiress of John Wenlock, a captain of Calais. His great-grandfather, John Finet, an Italian of Siena, came to England as a servant in the train of Cardinal Campeggio in 1519, settled here and married a lady named Mantell, maid of honour to Catherine of Arragon. John was brought up at court and commended himself to James I by composing and singing witty songs in the royal presence after supper. Sir Anthony Weldon (Court of King James, 1812, i. 399) credits Finet's songs with much coarseness. On 17 Jan. 1617-18 he is said to have offended his master by the impropriety of some verses that he introduced into a play