ing was permitted to take up his residence at Layhill, Devonshire. On 4 Oct. 1749 he received a pardon on condition that he should remain in such place as he should be directed by the king. He died in Poland Street, St. James's, Westminster, 28 Sept. 1766. 'The Earl of Cromartie's private character,' says the writer of his life in 1746, 'is very amiable; he is esteemed a polite nobleman, and affable in his temper and behaviour, and has little or nothing of that austere pride and haughtiness so peculiar to most highland chiefs.'
By his wife Isabella Gordon, called 'Bonnie Bell Gordon,' eldest daughter of Sir William Gordon, baronet, of Invergordon, Ross-shire, Cromarty had three sons—John, lord Macleod [q. v.], William, who died young, and George, a colonel in the 71st regiment, who died unmarried in 1788—and seven daughters. Engravings of the earl and countess are given in Fraser's 'Earls of Cromartie.'
[State Trials, xviii. 442–530; Life published in 1746; The Whole Proceedings in the House of Peers against William, Earl of Kilmarnock, George, Earl of Cromartie, and Arthur, Lord Balmerino, for High Treason; Scots Magazine, 1766, xxiii. 558; Sir William Fraser's Earls of Cromartie; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 398.]
MACKENZIE, GEORGE (1777–1856), meteorologist, was born in 1777 in Sutherlandshire, where his relations were thriving farmers, and where he in his early days tenanted a large farm. But after a lawsuit with the factor in the court of session, in which he won 600l. damages, he gave up farming and enlisted in the Sutherland local militia. Eventually he volunteered into the Perthshire militia, in which he continued till it was disbanded; but he was retained on the staff, and awarded a pension of half a crown a day.
As early as 1802 he began to keep a register of atmospheric changes, making observations in succession at Perth, Edinburgh, Dover, London, Haddington, Plymouth, Newcastle, and Leith. Ultimately he settled at Perth, where he spent only two hours a day (usually 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.) in bed. It was fourteen years before he was able to form a tolerable classification of atmospheric phenomena. He discovered that the periodical commencement and termination of years of scarcity or abundance are undoubtedly ascertainable, with the recurrence of favourable or unfavourable seasons. In the spring of 1819 Mackenzie succeeded in forming his 'primary cycle of the winds,' and in that and the following year he received the thanks of the English board of agriculture. For nearly twenty consecutive years he circulated annually printed 'Reports' or 'Manuals' of his observations. He died at County Place, Perth, on 13 May 1866, aged 79.
Mackenzie was author of:
- 'The System of the Weather of the British Islands; discovered in 1816 and 1817 from a Journal commencing Nov. 1802,' 4to, Edinburgh, 1818. On receiving a presentation copy the French Institute accorded a special vote of thanks to Mackenzie, and desired Baron von Humboldt to make a report on it.
- 'Manual of the Weather for 1830, including a brief Account of the Cycles of the Winds and Weather, and of the Circle of the Prices of Wheat,' 12mo, Edinburgh, 1829.
- 'Elements of the Cycles of the Winds, Weather, and Prices of Corn. … Also Reports of the Weather for 1844 and 1846 … with Notices of the Weather in 1862,' 8vo, Perth (1843).
[Perthshire Advertiser, 15 May 1856; Woods's Elements and Influence of the Weather; Gent. Mag. 1856, pt. i. p. 667.]
MACKENZIE, Sir GEORGE STEUART (1780–1848), mineralogist, only son of Major-general Sir Alexander Mackenzie of Coul, by his wife Katharine, daughter of Robert Ramsay of Camno, was born on 22 June 1780. He succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father in 1796. He first became known to the scientific world in 1800, when he obtained a 'decisive proof of the identity of diamond with carbon' by a series of experiments on the formation of steel by the combination of diamonds with iron (Nicholson, Journal of Natural Philosophy, iv. 103–10). In these experiments he is said to have made free use of his mother's jewels (Mrs. Gordon, Some Life of Sir David Brewster, p. 215). A few years later he became fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh, and ultimately president of the physical class of the latter.
The pupil and friend of Professor Robert Jameson [q. v.], Mackenzie throughout his life devoted much time to the study of mineralogy and geology. His interest in those subjects led him in 1810 to undertake a journey to Iceland, when he was accompanied by Dr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Holland and Dr. Richard Bright. Sir Charles Lyell speaks with admiration of 'the magnificent collection of mineralogical treasures' which he made during his travels (Life of Sir Charles Lyell, i. 156). In 1811 was published the 'Travels in Iceland,' the joint production of the three travellers. To this work he contributed the narrative of the voyage and the travels, and the chapters on the mine-
