SKETCH OF ZADOC THOMPSON. 265 



carry out a resolution of the General Assembly in regard to inter- 

 national literary and scientific exchanges. He wrote a report of 

 proceedings and instructions, presenting the advantages of the 

 exchange system so clearly as to reflect great credit upon himself 

 and upon his State. 



From an address which he delivered in Boston, in 1850, on the 

 invitation of the Boston Society of Natural History, we learn 

 something of the difliculties under which his knowledge of natu- 

 ral science was obtained. " What I have accomplished in the 

 business of natural history," he said, " I have done without any 

 associates engaged in like pursuits, without having any access to 

 collections of specimens, and almost without books." In this ad- 

 dress, while showing the difficulties, he at the same time insisted 

 upon the importance of the cultivation of natural history in coun- 

 try places. A habit of observation and comparison of objects, he 

 said, could be acquired quite as readily in the country as in the 

 city. He urged that the study of natural history should be intro- 

 duced more generally into our colleges and common schools, for 

 the reason that such a study " would refine and improve the moral 

 sensibilities of our people, and sharpen and invigorate their intel- 

 lectual powers." Prof. Thompson's love for natural history was 

 inborn, and throughout his life amounted to absolute devotion. 

 It was the supreme force in his life. From early childhood until 

 the end, his diligent study of Nature and zeal in collecting facts, 

 and objects to illustrate them, never faltered. He was not only 

 a student of Nature but her ardent and most constant lover. He 

 also enjoyed mathematical studies and was fond of statistics, and 

 these qualities rendered his work in all departments of science 

 more accurate and orderly than it might otherwise have been. 



Certain of his friends (his modest worth had made him many 

 of these), knowing his great desire to see the Exhibition of 1851 at 

 London, furnished him the means of making the trip. After an 

 absence of three months, during which he had spent some time in 

 Paris, he returned to his home in Burlington much benefited in 

 spirit and in health. Yielding to repeated solicitation, he pub- 

 lished soon after his Journal of a Trip to London, Paris, and the 

 Great Exhibition in 1851, which gave a most realizing impression 

 of what he had segn to those who had not made the trip. 



In the ten years following the publication of his History of 

 Vermont, railroads and telegraphs were introduced into the State, 

 and various discoveries in its natural history were made, all of 

 which furnished him material for a valuable supplement of sixty- 

 four pages, issued early in 1853. The General Assembly of this year 

 discovered what a blunder had been made in strangling the geo- 

 logical survey, and passed a bill appointing Prof. Thompson State 

 Naturalist, " to enter upon a thorough prosecution and comple- 



