Dougald Carmichael Ramsay was born at Chapel Hill, parish of Ardrossan, on the 11th of June, 1819. Two years afterwards the family went to reside in Rothesay. At twelve years of age he began the study of music. At that time there were no regular teachers of music in Rothesay, but to make up for this lack he made himself acquainted with the instructions which are to be found at the beginning of Psalm-tune books. He next got Burrowes' Pianoforte Primer, where there is a fine description of the progression of keys according to the Greek tetrachords. This interested him more and more in the study of music. He next got Fairbairn's Elements of Music, which has something of the mathematical groundwork of music at the end of the book. Although this portion of the work has not the beauty of order which is to be found in the progression of keys, it was useful in making him read other books on the same subject. At the time spoken of Rothesay had an excellent library, and many of the books on natural philosophy had something on the elements of music. In the third edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica there are 40 pages devoted to music. In this work the theory of acute harmonics, by Rameau, is given; the theory of grave harmonics, by Tartini; and the usual thorough-bass theory of harmony. There were things spoken of which could not be explained, and which, of course, the reader could not under-