Scotch traveller; born at Campster, Caithness-shire, on the 23rd of March 1842. He was an honors student at Edinburgh University, and studied at Leyden, Copenhagen and Rostock, from which he received the degree of Ph.D. In 1861 he visited Jan Mayen, Spitzbergen, and Greenland and the western shore of Baffin’s Bay, discovering the cause of the discoloration of the arctic ocean. From 1863 until 1866 he traveled in the Pacific Islands, Alaska, Venezuela, the Bering sea-coast and Vancouver, during which time he sent many new plants to Europe and made charts of the interior of Vancouver. In 1867 he visited Greenland a second time, from his observations at this time formulating theories which have been since confirmed by Peary and Nansen. He later visited the Barbary states of North Africa, and returning to Britain, lectured in various institutions in Edinburgh, Glasgow and elsewhere. A number of new species and places have been named after him. His arctic researches have been embodied in works published in Germany. His chief individual works consist of The Races of Mankind (1873–76), afterwards published as The Peoples of the World (1882–85); Our Earth and Its Story (1887–88); besides which he has edited Science for All, in five volumes; Bibliography of Morocco, in conjunction with Lord Playfair; and Leo Africanus, for the Hakluyt Society.
