4c8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



corps of practical observers, whose labors, when they should be 

 scattered abroad in this vast country, should not be lost to 

 science." 



In purely practical lines of enterprise he invented an excel- 

 lent stove which bore his name, and the patent for which brought 

 him considerable profit ; and he devised a preparation of lead and 

 rosin for lubricating machinery. 



Of his qualities as a teacher Prof. Silliman mentions espe- 

 cially his uniform kindness and courtesy of demeanor and pa- 

 tience in imjDarting instruction ; the excellent moral influence he 

 always exerted, his consistent Christian example, his personal 

 counsels, the genuine friendliness of his disposition, and the un- 

 affected interest he always manifested in the welfare of his pupils. 

 He was ever ready to encourage and assist any who exhibited 

 special fondness for the studies of his department, and it always 

 gave him pleasure when students passed beyond the bounds of 

 ordinary attainment. 



He labored to make knowledge more accessible to the people, 

 and science comprehensible and interesting to them. Dr. Barnard, 

 who describes him from the point of view of a teacher, says that 

 he " availed himself at all times of the lyceum and the popular 

 lecture, as well as of the daily press, to apply the principles of 

 science to the explanation of extraordinary phenomena of meteor- 

 ology and astronomy, as well as to the advancement of domestic 

 comfort and popular improvement generally. In an essay read 

 before the American Association for the Advancement of Educa- 

 tion, at New York, in 1835, he showed, in a felicitous manner, 

 that the whole tendency and drift of science, its inventions and 

 institutions, is democratic," 



Besides the works already mentioned. Prof. Olmsted pub- 

 lished many articles of a scientific or literary character in the 

 leading periodicals of the day contributing thus to the Ameri- 

 can Journal of Science, The Transactions of the American Asso- 

 ciation, The Smithsonian Contributions, The Christian Spectator, 

 and The New-Englander. He was especially fond of biographical 

 composition, and his memoirs of Dr. Dwight, Sir Humphry Davy, 

 Governor Treadwell, Eli Whitney, and William C. Redfield are 

 mentioned by Prof. Silliman as favorable examples. 



A YOUNG sea lion was born in the Jardin d''Accliinatation, Paris, on the 8th 

 of June. It spent its first two daj-s on the rooky platform on which it was born. 

 The third day it imprudently slipped into the water, where it floundered about 

 awkwardly till its mother had to come to the rescue. She took it by the skin of 

 the neck, as a dog or a cat would do, and carried it ashore. The mother takes 

 great care of her ofl'spring, holding her flipper over it, as if to protect it, while it 

 is asleep. 



