266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion of the geological survey of the State, embracing therein a 

 full and scientific examination and description of its rocks, soils, 

 metals, and minerals ; make careful and complete assays and 

 analyses of the same, and prepare the results of his labors for 

 publication under the three following titles, to wit: first, Physical 

 Geography, Scientific Geology and Mineralogy ; second, Econom- 

 ical Geology, embracing Botany and Agriculture ; third. General 

 Zoology of the State." At first he planned to do no more than 

 collate and arrange such material as had been accumulated by 

 his predecessors ; but he soon found this very unsatisfactory, and, 

 abandoning this plan, he undertook to go over the whole ground 

 anew. He had for years been unknowingly preparing for just 

 this task, and he threw himself into it with his accustomed en- 

 ergy and devotion, and suspended all other work ; but ere long his 

 overtaxed strength gave way, and his last illness was upon him. 

 At first he could not be willing to lay aside a task so congenial, 

 and which he so greatly desired to finish ; but soon his naturally 

 quiet and trustful disposition overcame all discontent, and in full 

 acquiescence in the will of the God in whom he had always trusted 

 and whom he had tried to serve, he came to the end in peace, on 

 January 19, 1856. At this time he also held the professorship of 

 Natural History in the University of Vermont, to which he had 

 been appointed in 1853. 



His friend for over a score of years, Dr. Thomas M. Brewer, 

 editor of the Boston Atlas, and himself a naturalist of no small 

 ability, thus referred to Prof. Thompson's death : " His loss, both 

 as a citizen and a public man he has not left his superior in sci- 

 ence behind him in his own State is one of no ordinary charac- 

 ter. We have known him long and well ; and in speaking of such 

 a loss we know not which most to sympathize with, the family 

 from whom has been taken the upright, devoted, and kind-hearted 

 head, or that larger family of science who have lost an honored 

 and most valuable member. Modest and unassuming, diligent 

 and indefatigable in his scientific pursuits, attentive to all, wheth- 

 er about him or at a distance, and whether friends or strangers, 

 no man will be more missed, not merely in his immediate circle 

 of family and friends, but in that larger sphere of the lovers 

 of natural science, than Zadoc Thompson." 



When his death was announced to the Boston Society of Natu- 

 ral History, of which he was a member. Prof. William B. Rogers 

 took occasion to express the high respect in which he had held 

 him as a thorough and persevering worker in geology, saying 

 that he possessed a larger amount of accurate practical knowl- 

 edge than would have been supposed from his modest and retir- 

 ing manners, and exhibited a great natural sagacity in those 

 departments of science which he loved. 



