Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/28

 not less than by his power of organisation and his excellent business faculty, he was successful in introducing needed reforms, in attracting new members and inspiriting old ones, and, finally, in placing the society upon a satisfactory footing as an active scientific body, issuing printed ‘Proceedings.’ At the time of his death, which occurred suddenly in Edinburgh on 18 Feb. 1887, Gray was engaged, in conjunction with Mr. William Evans, upon a volume dealing with the birds of the east coast of Scotland.



GRAY, SAMUEL FREDERICK (fl. 1780–1836), naturalist and pharmacologist, was the posthumous son of Samuel Frederick Gray, the anonymous translator of Linnæus's ‘Philosophia Botanica’ for James Lee's ‘Introduction to Botany.’ Born after his patrimony had been distributed, he was entirely dependent on his own industry, and from 1800 to his death suffered from disease of the lungs. He became a pharmaceutical chemist at Walsall in Staffordshire, where his second son, [q. v.], was born; but soon after this removed to London, his son [q. v.] having been born at Chelsea. In 1818 he published a ‘Supplement to the Pharmacopœia,’ which went through five later editions (1821, 1828, 1831, and 1836), and was rewritten by Professor Redwood in 1847. Having studied Ray's tentative natural system of classification of plants, and never adopted the artificial system of Linnæus, Gray was much fascinated by the method of Jussieu, and arranged the plants in his supplement to the ‘Pharmacopœia’ (London, 1818) in accordance with it, this being the first English work in which it was adopted. Having become a contributor to the ‘London Medical Repository,’ he was in 1819 invited to become joint editor, and acted as such until 1821. Besides unsigned articles he contributed to this journal papers on the metamorphoses of insects, on worms, on indigenous emetic plants, on generation in imperfect plants (cryptogamia), &c. About this time he gave lectures on botany, upon the Jussieuan system, partly in conjunction with his son J. E. Gray, at the Sloane Street Botanical Garden and at Mr. Taunton's medical schools at Hatton Garden and Maze Pond. In 1821 he published ‘A Natural Arrangement of British Plants,’ in two volumes, the introductory portions only being by him, the synoptical part being the work of his son J. E. Gray, though not bearing his name. This valuable work was much decried by Sir J. E. Smith, Dr. George Shaw, and other extreme votaries of the Linnæan system, the alleged reason being that ‘English Botany’ was quoted as ‘Sowerby's’ and not as ‘Smith's.’ In Lindley's ‘Synopsis,’ printed in 1829, Gray's work is deliberately ignored, so that it has seldom received its due credit as our first flora arranged on the natural system. In 1823 Gray published ‘The Elements of Pharmacy,’ and in 1828 ‘The Operative Chemist,’ both practical works of a high order of merit.



GRAY, STEPHEN (d. 1736), electrician, was a pensioner of the Charterhouse in London. Thomson, the historian of the Royal Society, observes that the absence of any further biographical details is remarkable; but Desaguliers intimates that Gray's ‘character was very particular, and by no means amiable.’ Priestley, in his ‘History of Electricity,’ avers that no student of electricity ever ‘had his heart more entirely in the work.’ His passionate fondness for new discoveries exposed him to many self-deceptions; but his researches led to very valuable results bearing upon the communication, the conduction, and the insulation of electricity. He was the first to divide all material substances into electrics and non-electrics, according as they were or were not subject to electric excitation by friction. He also discovered that non-electrics could be transformed into the electric state by contact with disturbed and active electrics. Gray's manifold experiments led to the division of substances into conductors and non-conductors. Du Fay recognised the value of Gray's discoveries, and was one of the earliest men of science to apply them. Gray was led from experiments made with a glass tube and a down-feather tied to the end of a small stick to try the effect of drawing the feather through his fingers. He found that the small downy fibres of the feather were attracted by his finger. The success of this experiment depended upon principles not then in Gray's mind; but he was encouraged to proceed, and found that many other substances were electric. He discovered that light was emitted in the dark by silk and linen, and in greater degree by a piece of white pressing paper. He thus gradually mastered the principle of the communication of electric power from