4 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of them all. During his occupation of the chair of Mathematics, 

 the doctrine of fluxions, or the calculus, was introduced into 

 the course, and the standard of attainment was raised in other 

 branches of the department. His transfer to the chair of Natural 

 Science was welcome to him. Even while a Professor of Mathe- 

 matics, according to Prof. Charles Phillips, he had made frequent 

 botanical excursions in the country round Chapel Hill ; and after 

 settling himself in his new chair he extended and multiplied 

 these excursions ; " so that when he died he was known in almost 

 every part of North Carolina, and he left no one behind him 

 better acquainted with its mountains, valleys, and plains ; its 

 birds, beasts, bugs, fishes, and shells ; its trees, flowers, vines, and 

 mosses ; its rocks, stones, sands, clays, and marls. Although in 

 Silliman's Journal, and in other periodicals less prominent, but 

 circulating more widely nearer home, he published many of his 

 discoveries concerning North Carolina, yet it is to be regretted 

 that he did not print more and in a more permanent form. It 

 would doubtless have thus appeared that he knew, and perhaps 

 justly estimated the worth of, many facts which much later 

 investigators have proclaimed as their own remarkable discov- 

 eries. But the information that he gathered was for his own 

 enjoyment and for the instruction of his pupils. On these he 

 lavished, to their utmost capacity for reception, the knowledge 

 that he had gathered by his widely extended observations, and 

 had stored up mainly in the recesses of his own singularly reten- 

 tive memory." The notes of his excursions, which are recorded 

 in a series of blank books kept for the purpose, give revelations 

 of the habits of the author's mind ; they chronicle his walks over 

 farms which he names, and observations of individual plants and 

 other objects in specified localities. " By such a rock," writes Mrs. 

 C. P. Spencer, in an article of reminiscences, " in such a field, is a 

 plant that he must identify. By Scott's Hole, near the willow is a 

 Carex that he must watch. March 29, 182], he finds yellow jessa- 

 mine in bloom in Mrs. Hooper's garden, and ' in great abundance 

 on the creek below Merritt's mill.' . . . May 30, 1821, occurs this 

 note, that he had that day found the last of the twelve varieties 

 of oak that are within two miles of the university ; then follows 

 a list of the oaks and notes of their situation. ... In the third 

 week of April, 1824, he begins a new Diary of Mosses, and hunts 

 the Lislxea hypnum through a dozen authorities, to be sure of it. 

 He had the true scholar's disdain of taking anything at second 

 hand. Such pages are diversified with ' Hints for the good in- 

 struction of the class ' ; or, ' Points to be meditated respecting the 

 nature of light.' " In the preface to ono of these note-books 

 written in French a plan of study was laid down for each week. 

 So many hours were to be given to mathematics, so many to Latin 



