Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/240

 . In order to place himself in communication with England, he (8 Aug.) left Stanley Falls to go down the Congo to Bangala, where Mr. Herbert Ward, a member of Major Barttelot's party, was known to be awaiting telegrams from the Emin committee. The weather was bad; a chill contracted by Jameson on 10 Aug. developed into hæmaturic fever, and on 17 Aug., the day after his arrival at Bangala, he died. On the 18th he was buried on an island in the Congo opposite the village.

A small but valuable collection of birds and insects which Jameson made at Yambuya was sent home in 1890. The bulk of his collections remains with his widow; but a valuable portion of the ornithological collections has been placed by Captain Shelley, to whom Jameson gave it, in the Natural History Museum, Kensington. His ‘Diary’ of the Emin Pasha expedition was published in 1890. A portrait is prefixed.

Of slight build, great refinement of manners and cultured habits, Jameson was to all appearance scarcely robust enough for the rough work of his latest expedition. Yet his loyal determination at all risks to carry out Mr. Stanley's orders, and his unflinching endurance of hunger, toil, and illness, go far to counterbalance the incident which has marred his fame. His widow and two daughters survived him.



JAMESON, ROBERT (1774–1854), mineralogist, born at Leith on 11 July 1774, was educated at Leith grammar school and Edinburgh University, and became assistant to a surgeon in his native town, but having studied natural history under Dr. Walker in 1792 and 1793, he soon determined to abandon medicine for science. In 1798, when only twenty-four, he published his ‘Mineralogy of the Shetland Islands and of Arran, with an Appendix containing Observations on Peat, Kelp, and Coal,’ which he incorporated in 1800 with his ‘Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles,’ two quarto volumes. In this latter year he went to Freiburg, to study for nearly two years under Werner, after which he devoted two years to continental travel. On his return to Edinburgh in 1804 he was appointed regius professor of natural history and keeper of the university museum in succession to Dr. Walker. As a teacher he attracted numerous pupils, excited their enthusiasm, keenly measured their abilities, and retained their friendship in after-life. Of a slender, wiry build, he conducted numerous successful excursions of students until prevented by the infirmities of age, and as keeper of the museum got together, with government aid but at great personal cost, an enormous collection, arranging in geographical order forty thousand specimens of rocks and minerals, in addition to ten thousand fossils, eight thousand birds, and many thousand insects and other specimens. He was the first great exponent in Britain of Werner's geological tenets, but afterwards frankly admitted his conversion to the views of Hutton. In 1808 he founded the Wernerian Natural History Society, and throughout his life he kept the scientific world in England informed as to the progress of science in Germany. In conjunction with Sir David Brewster he, in 1819, originated the ‘Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,’ of which, from its tenth volume, he was the sole editor until his death. Jameson died unmarried, in Edinburgh, on 19 April 1854. His bust is in the library of the university.

In addition to the works above mentioned, he published:  A mineralogical description of Dumfriesshire, 1804, the first part of an intended series embracing all Scotland.  ‘System of Mineralogy,’ 3 vols. 1804–8, of which a second edition appeared in 1816, and a third in 1820.  ‘External Characters of Minerals,’ 1805; 2nd edit. 1816.  ‘Elements of Geognosy,’ 1809.  ‘Manual of Minerals and Mountain Rocks,’ 1821.  ‘Elements of Mineralogy,’ 1840. In 1813 he annotated Leopold von Buch's ‘Travels through Norway,’ adding an account of the author, and in 1813, 1817, 1818, and 1827 he published editions of Cuvier's ‘Theory of the Earth.’ In 1826 he edited Wilson and Bonaparte's ‘American Ornithology,’ and wrote the geological notes on Sir W. E. Parry's third arctic voyage. In 1830 he edited ‘The Anatomie of Humors’ for the Bannatyne Club, and in the same year probably produced the ‘Illustrations of Ornithology’ in conjunction with Sir [q. v.], and P. J. Selby, as well as a ‘Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in Africa,’ written in conjunction with Hugh Murray and James Wilson. In 1834 he wrote an ‘Encyclopædia of Geography,’ and in 1843 an ‘Historical and Descriptive Account of British