Having quarrelled with her husband, Robert Buchan, a potter of Greenock, she settled with her children in Glasgow, where she was deeply impressed by a sermon preached by Hugh White, minister of the Relief church at Irvine.
In 1764, with the aid of his assistant, William Irvine (1743-1787), he further measured the latent heat of steam, though not very accurately.
Still, according to Murray and Irvine, finely divided colloidal clay is to be found in all parts of the ocean however remote from land, though in very small amount, and there is less in tropical than in cooler waters.
After travelling in Italy and Switzerland he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk in 1843, and was soon after ordained at the Secession (after 1847, the United Presbyterian) Church in Irvine, Ayrshire.
He was educated at the grammar school of Irvine, the university of Glasgow, and the East India Company's College at Haileybury.
