RAE, JOHN

born Sept. 30, 1813, near Stromness, Orkney Islands, Scot. died July 22, 1893, London physician and explorer of the Canadian Arctic. Rae studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (182933). He was appointed (1833) surgeon to the Hudson's Bay Company ship that annually visited Moose Factory, a trading post on James Bay (now in Ontario). Two years later he was made resident surgeon of the post, and he remained there for 10 years. In 184647, Rae set forth on the first of four expeditions into the Canadian Arctic; he surveyed Committee and Repulse bays and proved Boothia to be a peninsula. Returning to London, he was appointed second in command to Sir John Richardson on their overland search (184849) between the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers for Sir John Franklin's lost Arctic expedition. In 1849 the Hudson's Bay Company placed Rae in charge of the Mackenzie River district. For eight months of 1851 he led another party in search of Franklin, travelling about 5,300 miles (8,500 kilometres) and mapping 700 miles of the southern coast of Victoria Island. Rae returned to London but in 185354 again set out for the Canadian Arctic, surveying Boothia Peninsula and proving King William Land to be an island. It was on this journey that Rae received from Eskimos at Pelly Bay the first news that the members of the Franklin expedition had perished of exposure and starvation. Rae retired from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1856 and lived thereafter mainly in London. In 1860 and 1864 he took part in land surveys for the establishment of a telegraph between England and America. Rae was known for his ability to live off the land and for his remarkable physical strength; during his Arctic travels he walked more than 23,000 miles. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1880. His writings include Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea, in 1846 and 1847 (1850). born June 1, 1796, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scot. died July 12, 1872, New York City Scottish-born American economist, physician, and teacher. Rae was educated in classics, mathematics, and medicine at the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He emigrated to Canada in 1822, where he pursued a career as a schoolteacher. Rae was an inventor and natural scientist as well as an economist; when he lost his teaching position in Canada (1848) because of a series of disputes over the provision of education, he recommenced his career as a doctor. He traveled to the California gold fields and the Hawaiian islands, finally returning to the United States in 1871. But it is as an economist that he is famous. He advanced a theory of economic development that contained a number of elements which have brought him (largely posthumous) fame. Prominent among these is a theory of capital in which Rae analyzed the demand for machinery, characterized by positive but declining marginal productivity, and the supply of savings for transformation into capital goods. In the latter connection he used the concept of time-preference and analyzed the social and cultural factors which underlie the willingness to accumulate capital in different societies. His interest in capital goods and in natural science led to a detailed treatment of the process of invention, with Rae again providing an important and pioneering discussion. His work greatly influenced such diverse economists as John Stuart Mill and Joseph A. Schumpeter.