into an assemblage of decent, amiable human beings, what could he not achieve in a day, a year, or a life?" His reception of members of his own profession was specially cordial, and if those from any one country were more welcome than others, it was the many who crossed the Atlantic to see and hear him. America had the greatest share in the birth of anaesthetics, and Simpson's intimacy with so many of the profession in the United States made it easy for them to welcome his assistance in that great event. Gynaecology, too, was eagerly taken up in America, and many were Simpson's admirers from that country who returned home fired by his influence to work out for themselves valuable additions to that science. Simpson paid close attention to current events in other branches of science, in politics, and in religion. Sir Robert Christison and he were at one time associated in an enterprise which narrowly escaped being the source of a fortune to him. Rangoon petroleum which was obtained from pits dug on the banks of the Irawaddy had been chemically investigated by Christison, and he had isolated from it a substance which he named petroline; unfortunately, unknown to him, a German chemist had independently made the same discovery a few months earlier, and christened the substance paraffin. When, a few years later, it occurred to Simpson that the crude Rangoon petroleum might serve as a lubricant for machinery and prove cheaper than those in general use, he applied to Christison. He met with willing assistance, but a refusal on principle to have anything to do with a patent, which Christison laughingly suggested, might be called "Simpson's incomparable antifriction lubricant!" "When I called for Simpson," says Christison, in his Recollections, "his two reception rooms were as usual full of patients, more were seated in the lobby, female faces stared from all the windows in vacant expectancy, and a lady was ringing the door bell. But the doctor brushed through the crowd to join me, and left them all kicking their heels for the next two hours." Their experiments proved that petroleum was vastly superior to sperm oil, the best known and most commonly used lubricant. Simpson proceeded to take out a patent, having no such scruples as Christison; but to his chagrin found that he had been forestalled by others, and had to abandon the subject. About the period now referred to Scotland was stirred from end to end by the ecclesiastical movement which culminated in the crisis known as the Disruption, when, for reasons connected with the jurisdiction of the National Church, a majority of its members severed their connection therewith in a public and dramatic fashion, and "came out" to found the now strong and vigorous Free Kirk. Simpson at first steered clear of all the squabbles and discussions which the movement gave rise to, but when affairs approached a crisis he threw his lot in with the leaders of the new movement, and became a staunch Free Churchman.