The former――the plain, unvarnished Scot――was Dr. Hutton, the ingenious philosopher, who thought out and published the “Theory of the Earth” that goes by his name, having previously shown his public spirit, and rendered essential services to the agriculture of his native country, by bringing, at much exertion to himself, an improved system of husbandry from the rich and fruitful shire of Norfolk, and introducing it into the district where he possessed a small estate. His companion, whose countenance looked that of a being inwardly satisfied with himself and all who came around him, was Dr. Black, the eminent Professor of Chemistry in the northern capital; he whose experiments tended to open up that path of scientific discovery which others have since so successfully pursued. Joseph Black, than whom few men have ever lived and died more truly respected by his daily associates, was a native of France. He was born in the year 1728, on the banks of the Garonne, hard by the place where that river visits the city of Bordeaux. There his father, who belonged to Belfast, had settled as a wine-merchant, and married the daughter of an individual engaged in the same trade. But with all these temptations and advantages in one of the largest and most opulent of French towns to embark the boy in the commercial pursuits which formed the business of his nearest relatives, young Black was very early destined to a medical career. Arrangements were made with that view; and at the age of twelve the future chemist left his home and native soil, to be fittingly educated at the grammar-school of the flourishing Irish sea-port town from which his worthy sire had emigrated to the fair land of vines. For several years he pursued his preparatory studies in Belfast; and his maternal grandfather being, though resident in Bordeaux, connected by birth and some territorial possession with Scotland, Black was, most likely from that cause, transported in his eighteenth year to Glasgow, and entered as a student at the University. He was immediately introduced to, and patronized by, the Professor of Natural Philosophy, with whose son he formed a juvenile intimacy, which was cemented by the similarity of their tastes.