Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, 7th Baronet was a Scottish mineralogist.
Background
The only son of Major-general Sir Alexander Mackenzie of Coul, by his wife Katharine, daughter of Robert Ramsay of Camno, he 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 claimed a 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.
In these experiments he is said to have made free use of his mother"s jewels.
Career
A few years later he became fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh. His interest in those subjects led him in 1810 to undertake a journey to Iceland, when he was accompanied by Henry Holland and Doctor Richard Bright. To illustrate the conclusions he had formed with regard to the geology of Iceland, Mackenzie visited the Faroe Islands in 1812, and on his return read an account of his observations before the Edinburgh Royal Society.
Mackenzie died in October 1848.
The fourth son Robert Ramsay Mackenzie became Premier of Queensland.
