BLACK. 107 as the fittest, person to succeed his former teacher. He therefore appointed professor of chemistry and ana- tomy, in the university of Glasgow early in the ensuing year; but not conceiving himself sufficiently qualified to undertake public lectures on anatomy, he obtained the concurrence of the uniyersity to exchange that task with the professor of medicine, His time was now devoted to delivering lectures on chemistry and othe institutes of medicine, and his reputation as a professor increased every year. . The situation he held, and the anxious attention he paid to his patients, have been adduced to account for the little progress he made in that fine career of experi- mental investigation, wbich he had so auspiciously cóm- menced. This inactivity must be much regretted as highly injurious to the science, and it displayed an indolence or 979 rdwas se carelessness of reputation, not easily to be justified. He still, however, continued to pursue biş chemical re- searches, though they were directed to a different object. He engaged, in a series of, experiments relativel to heat, which had occupied his atteption at intervals, from the earliest period of his philosophical investigatións. On this subject he prosecuted his inquiriesowith so much success, as to lay down some primary axioms, which he established beyond the power of conuroversy to shake them. His account of his experiments and reasoning on this subject was comprised in a paper drawn up with his usual accuracy and perspicuity, and which was read, April 23, 1762, before a literary society, consisting of the members of the university, and such gentlemen as mani- fested a taste for philosophy and literature, and who met every Friday in the Faculty Room of the college. His discoveries in this department of science were perhaps the most important he ever made, and may be reckoned among the most valuable of the eighteenth century. The experiments by which his opinions on this subject were established, were at once simple and decisive; but to enter into the subjeot at sufficient length to ensure per-
