Orkney has been the birthplace of many men of high scientific attainments. Murdoch MacKenzie (d. 1797) was a distinguished hydrographer, who from 1752 to 1771 performed an enormous amount of professional work as surveyor to the Admiralty. His _Treatise on Marine Surveying_ is still esteemed. James Copland, M.D., a native of Deerness, was one of the leading medical men of his day (1791-1870). After picking up a knowledge of tropical diseases in West Africa, and travelling in France and Germany, he settled in London. His once famous _Dictionary of Practical Medicine_, however, with its 3509 double-column, small-type pages, a book by one man on every branch of medical science, soon degenerated into one of the curiosities of literature. Thomas Stewart Traill (1781-1862), son of a parish minister of Kirkwall, was professor of medical jurisprudence at Edinburgh University. Himself a man of almost universal learning, he fitly edited the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Matthew Forster Heddle, a son of Robert Heddle of Melsetter, was professor of chemistry at the University of St Andrews, and a mineralogist of great distinction. His great collection of Scottish minerals, now in the Royal Scottish Museum at Edinburgh, is one of the finest things of the kind that any country possesses. To these names we would add those of the Rev. Charles Clouston, minister of the parish of Sandwick, a distinguished meteorologist and naturalist, and of Sir Thomas Smith Clouston, the late distinguished specialist in mental pathology. [Illustration: Sir Robert Strange, the Engraver] Sir Robert Strange, highly renowned as an engraver, was a son of David Strang, Burgh Treasurer of Kirkwall. Strange joined the Jacobites in 1745, engraved the Prince’s portrait and the plate for his bank-notes. He escaped alive from Culloden and evaded the search for him. Settling in London, he became the foremost in his art. One of his works is the engraving of West’s Apotheosis of George III’s children, Octavius and Alfred.