840 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sually small doses of medicine. He was, however, in the main, an 

 observing and intelligent practitioner, and was remarkably assid- 

 uous in his attentions and soothing in his behavior to his patients. 



" In figure he was tall and exceedingly well formed ; in middle 

 life he might be considered as having been handsome. His physi- 

 ognomy was strongly expressive of intelligence, and his eye was 

 remarkably fine and penetrating. 



" In temperament he was irritable and even choleric. His 

 spirits were irregular, his manners consequently variable, impetu- 

 ous, vehement. These repeated vacillations between equanimity 

 and depression were generally owing to the sudden and repeated 

 attacks of his continual earthly companion irregular gout. 



" In familiar conversation he was often elegant, remarkably 

 facetious, but never witty. 



" As a parent he was kind, tender, and indulgent to a fault. 



" He possessed some high virtues ; among the most elevated of 

 them was his unaffected love of country. Indeed, his patriotic 

 feelings were not only strong, but frequently expressed with un- 

 reserved warmth." 



A sketch of Barton, extracted from that by his nephew, was 

 published in The Portfolio for April, 1816 (Philadelphia), and in 

 an editorial note prefixed to it occurs this statement : " Our esti- 

 mate, too, of the character of the deceased is somewhat different 

 from that which has been formed by the author of this ' Sketch.' 

 Dr. Barton was a very industrious man in the pursuit of science, 

 and though we do not think that he has contributed much to en- 

 large its bounds, we are willing to believe that his collections will 

 facilitate the labors of the student, to whom he has left a laudable 

 example of active diligence and unwearied perseverance.'' 



Dr. Barton was in correspondence with many prominent natu- 

 ralists and physicians both at home and abroad. He established 

 an enviable foreign reputation, as is attested by his membership 

 in the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow, the Linngean 

 Society of London, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the 

 Danish Royal Society of Sciences, and the Royal Danish Medical 

 Society. 



Speaking of travel as a means of learning, and of the great expansion 

 that has been given to it of late years, Dr. B. W. Richardson calls such a 

 mode one in which the surface of the earth becomes a living map, and the 

 spoken languages the living grammars a mode that must extend day by 

 day as the mind yearns for more knowledge and the power that springs 

 from it. No end is visible to him of the line of travel now inaugurated, 

 and he has visions of university ships manned and supplied, instead of 

 guns and fighting men, with professors, laboratories, observatories, and 

 libraries, and in which voyages of research shall be made by all classes 

 round the world. 



