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James Croll was born on January 2, 1821, in St. Martin’s, Perthshire, Scotland.

He was a Scottish scientist who developed an astronomical theory of climate change. He linked climate change, our planet’s ice ages, and astronomy, proposing that climate change is caused by periodic changes in the amount of energy our planet receives from the sun. With a little schooling and entirely self-taught in physics, celestial mechanics, and philosophy, he formulated his visionary ideas and began publishing serious scientific papers while working as a janitor of Anderson College in Glasgow. The college had an excellent library where Croll had access to academic books for the first time in his life. In 1864, he wrote “On the Physical Cause of the Change of Climate During Glacial Epochs”, looking at the effects of the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit on ice ages. The book made his name well-known in scientific circles. In 1867, Croll accepted a job in Edinburgh as secretary and accountant to the Scottish Geological Survey. In 1875, he wrote his major book “Climate and Time”. In 1876, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and an Honorary Member of the New York Academy of Sciences. The University of St. Andrews awarded him an honorary degree. Despite retiring in 1880, Croll continued writing, publishing “Discussions on Climate and Cosmology” in 1886, “Stellar Evolution and its Relations to Geologic Time” in 1889, and “The Philosophical Basis of Evolution” in 1890.

In 1848, he married Isabella MacDonald (1828–1913). He died on December 15, 1890, in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland.

Adam Crooks was born on December 11, 1827, in West Flamborough, Ontario.

He was a lawyer and politician. He studied at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto (B.C.L, 1851; B.A., 1852; M.A., 1853). He was called to the bar in 1851. Practising in Toronto, he specialized in the remunerative field of equity law. His most famous case, in 1862, the Commercial Bank of Canada v. the Great Western Railway Company, was a $900,000 civil suit. He received a D.C.L. from the University of Toronto and was named a Queen's Counsel in 1863. He served as Attorney General from 1871 to 1872 and provincial treasurer from 1872 to 1877. Crooks played a major role in developing the 1876 liquor licence act, also known as the Crooks Act, which attempted to control the sale of alcohol within the province. He also served as the first Minister of Education in Ontario (1876-1883). In 1884, he suffered a decline in mental and physical health, and by the fall of 1884, he was confined to an asylum in Hartford, Conn., where he died in 1885.

In 1856, he married Emily Anne C. Evans (1828–1868). He died on December 28, 1885, in Hartford, Connecticut.