the Canadian expedition in 1711, under John Hill [q. v.] (Kingsford, Canada, ii. 464). The regiment was disbanded at the peace of Utrecht, when Kane was appointed lieutenant-governor of Minorca. He was very active in opposing the alleged encroachments of the Spanish clergy. A memorial from the clergy is among the Spanish MSS. in the British Museum (Egerton MS. 2174, fol. 154). Full particulars of the dispute will be found in a pamphlet entitled ‘A Vindication of Colonel Kane, Lieutenant-Governor of Minorca, against the late complaints made by the Inhabitants of that Island,’ London, 1720. Some of Kane's correspondence in 1716–17 is in Egerton MSS. 2171–2174. He was lieutenant-governor of Gibraltar during the dispute with Spain in 1720, and in 1725 became colonel 9th foot. He appears to have been relieved in Gibraltar by General Clayton previous to the siege of 1727. In 1730 he was appointed governor of Minorca. He became a brigadier-general in 1734. In 1730–2 he was engaged in a hot dispute with the Spanish government about the reception of a Spanish consul in the island (Addit. MSS. 32766 ff. 195, 314, 32779 ff. 138, 140). According to the War Office Kane died on 9 Jan. 1737 (Cannon, 9th Foot), and was buried in St. Philip's Castle, Minorca. A cenotaph with bust was put up in Westminster Abbey, on which the date of death is 20 Dec. 1736.
Kane appears to have been an accomplished soldier. He wrote a ‘Narrative of the Campaigns in the reigns of King William III and Queen Anne,’ and a ‘New System of Exercise for a Battalion of Foot,’ both of which were first published after his death in 1745, and went through several editions. General Wolfe thought highly of the exercise-book (Wright, Life of Wolfe, p. 192). According to Kane's system the battalion was to be drawn up, with bayonets fixed, in three ranks (instead of six), and to be equalised in four ‘grand-divisions,’ from which the platoons and sub-divisions were to be formed, for purposes of manœuvre. Like all practical soldiers, Kane strongly opposed teaching evolutions which would be of no use on the field of battle.
[Monumental inscription in Westminster Abbey; Kane's Narrative of Campaigns, 1st edit. 1747 (Kane never mentions his own doings in the Narrative); Cannon's Hist. Rec. 18th Royal Irish (Cannon's particulars are taken from the accounts of Brigadier Stearne, Captain Parker, and Private (afterwards Captain) Milner, all of whom were in the regiment with Kane, and their printed narratives are to be found in the British Museum); Cannon's Hist. Rec. 9th or Norfolk Regiment of Foot; Sayers's Hist. of Gibraltar; Calendar Treasury Papers, 1720–7; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 17865. Some of Evans's particulars are wrong.]
KANE, Sir ROBERT JOHN (1809–1890), man of science, born at Dublin on 24 Sept. 1809, was son of John Kane, a manufacturing chemist there, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He afterwards studied medical and practical science both in Dublin and Paris; became clinical clerk at the Meath Hospital, and obtained the prize offered by Dr. Graves at Dublin in 1830 for the best essay on the pathological condition of the fluids in typhus fever. In 1831 he was appointed professor of chemistry to the Apothecaries' Hall, Dublin; and published in the same year ‘Elements of Practical Pharmacy’ (8vo, with five folding plates). He retained his professorship till 1845. Kane became a licentiate of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in 1832, and fellow in 1841. In the former year he originated the ‘Dublin Journal of Medical Science,’ but closed his connection with it in 1834. From that year till 1847 he was professor of natural philosophy to the Royal Dublin Society, and in 1836 he visited the chief laboratories and scientific institutions in France and Germany. Five years later a royal medal was awarded to Kane by the Royal Society of London for his ‘Contributions to the chemical history of archil and litmus,’ which he had communicated to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ in 1840. He had become an editor of the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ in 1840, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1849. He was in 1842 appointed secretary of the council of the Royal Irish Academy. Parts i. and ii. of his elaborate ‘Elements of Chemistry’ appeared in 1841, and part iii. in 1843. The work was well received. It was introduced by Faraday into the Woolwich course, and was used in the United States of America, where an edition was brought out in 1843 under the care of John William Draper. Kane brought out a second edition in 1849. The gold prize medal of the Royal Irish Academy was awarded to Kane in 1843 for his ‘Researches on the Nature and Constitution of the Compounds of Ammonia,’ published in the Academy's ‘Transactions,’ vol. xix.
Kane paid much attention to the development of industries in Ireland, and delivered a course of lectures on the subject in Dublin in 1843. In the next year he collected his materials in a volume, published in 1844, under the title of ‘Industrial Resources of Ireland.’ The work met with much success, and a second edition was published in 1845. Kane here directed attention to the various
