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TEE CANADIAN BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. 81 being elected. He is President of the Reform Association of Port Elgin, and a man of much influence among his political confreres, and of prominence as a citizen. The Doctor holds his religious connection with the Presbyterian Church, cherishing sacredly the faith of his ancestors from the days of Knox, and is living an exemplary life. September 30,1857, Miss Eleanor Sproat, of Milton, county town of Halton, was joined in wedlock with Dr. Douglass, and died July 18, 1877, leaving four daughters, all yet living. Their names are, Jennie, Marion E., Eleanor, and Helen Sproat. JOHB" MACOUN, M.A., F.L.S., BELLEVILLE. S HOULD Samuel Smiles ever enlarge his entertaining and instructive volume on Self- Help," he will find rich material in the life of John Macoun, who has educated himself, He is a native of the County of Down, Ireland, the son of James Macoun, a The Macouns are a very old family in the County of Down, and have become the best botanist in the Dominion of Canada, and is a member of the Linnaean Society of London. British soldier, and Ann Jane Nevin, a descendant of the Scotch Covenanters, and was born on the 17th of April, 1832. held lands there for hundreds of years. John lost his father when he was only five years old. In the year 1850, at the age of eighteen years, accompanied his mother and three other children to the New World, and the family settled on a farm in the Township of Seymour, County of Northumberland, forty miles from Cobourg. There he farmed for six years, studying every leisure moment. He had a passion for botany; was early smitten with admiration of the novel and beautiful flora of this new country, and'gave his spare time to the study of different branches, with botany as his specialty. He supplied his intellectual wants with the eagerness that half-starved herds plunge into a clover field. In order to raise funds that he might pursue his studies to better advantage, he fitted himself to teach a public school, which he found near Brighton, and taught between two and three years. With his exchequer moderately replenished, in 1859, he spent six On leaving Toronto, Mr, months at the Normal School, at Toronto, thus getting a better insight into the art of teaching, as well as being better fitted for the calling by his own mental drill. Macoun taught a short time in another locality; then came to Belleville, and has since been a steady educator, never for a moment forgetting himself, and giving special attention to botany and geology. Here he rose, step by step, until he became Head Master of the Public Schools ; resigning that position in 1874, to take the Chair of Botany and Geology in Albert University, and Rector of the College Grammar School, the duties of which position he is discharging 10