One of Wollaston’s peculiarities was an exceeding jealousy of any person entering his laboratory. “Do you see that furnace?” he once said to a friend, who had penetrated unbidden to this sacred ground. “Yes.” “Then make a profound bow to it, for this is the first, and will be the last time of your seeing it.” It is not a necessary inference, that this dislike to having his processes observed arose from jealousy either of his fame or his profit: it may have been merely the result of a somewhat saturnine and reserved temper, which seems to have shunned unnecessary publicity on all occasions. Wollaston was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793. He was appointed one of its Secretaries, November 6, 1806. His first paper, which is on medical subjects, is published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1797; and, until his death, he continued to be a frequent contributor. His papers amount in number to thirty-nine, and must be well examined before a just idea can be formed of the extent and variety of his scientific knowledge. They embrace various subjects connected with Pathology, Optics, Electricity, Chemistry, Crystallography, and mechanical contrivances of various sorts. He contributed a few papers to other philosophical works. Of the Geological Society he was an active member, though he sent no memoirs to its Transactions; and on the first annual meeting of that body after his death, the president, Dr. Fitton, bore testimony to the high value of his services to the science of Geology.