1895.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 461 



by an annoying bronchial affection, which, added to the infirmities of 

 advanced age, rendered it imprudent for him to encounter variations 

 of temperature. While thus prevented from giving the usual at- 

 tention to his official duties, his time was congenially occupied in 

 correspondence, composition and study, no diminution of mental 

 clearness or activity being apparent to the friends whom he greeted 

 so cordially. During the late winter his vital powers gradually but 

 steadily failed, until after six hours of unconsciousness the close of his 

 busy and useful life was reached, calmly and without acute suffer- 

 ing, March 24th, in its eighty-eighth year. 



Dr. Ruschenberger was a man of striking individuality. The 

 dominant notes of his character were loyalty to truth, as he under- 

 stood it, and unsparing devotion to duty. His prejudices were strong 

 and his affections warm. He was a strict disciplinarian, but he 

 never exacted from others what he was not prepared to render him- 

 self He was frequently severe in his criticisms, which were, how- 

 ever, in the main salutary. While assuming a stern demeanor to 

 those whom he thought deficient in a sense of duty, to the earnest 

 student he was always helpful and encouraging. To those who 

 knew him intimately, his innate gentleness was apparent, an affec- 

 tionate word or a kindly proffer of assistance, especially during his 

 later and less robust years, at once eliciting evidence of grateful 

 emotion. He was impatient of what he called "indirection," pre- 

 ferring on the part of others the frankness which he was not afraid 

 to employ himself. 



His aesthetic tastes were austere in the extreme. He cared but 

 little about art as such, and the utter absence of ornamentation from 

 the interior of the museum and library of the Academy is due to 

 this peculiarity of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the 

 Building Fund rather than to economic necessity. He once re- 

 marked that had he his way he would pull down to a level with 

 the house tops, all the church steeples, as they were unsightly and 

 useless. Whether this feature of his character was due to inherit- 

 ance, to education or to long association with an environment where 

 the refinements of ornamentation would be out of place cannot be 

 determined. His attitude toward literature was equally severe. 

 He regarded the matter-of-fact narrative of "Robinson Crusoe" as 

 the ideal novel, while the glowing imagery of Pierre Loti's "An 

 Iceland Fisherman" was pronounced "unreadable stuff." 



