388 WILLIAM FERREL. 



ting down aught in malice; He was, I believe, above most men, 

 one who can stand the test. His faults are patent. One cannot 

 read him long without forgetting them in admiration of his 

 nobly simple merits. I have said that I believe his chance of 

 survival better than that of any other contemporary American 

 man of letters. I trust I have shown why. In the first place, 

 he has recorded in a way as yet unapproached the homely 

 beauties of New England nature. In the second, he accepted 

 with all his heart the traditional democratic principles of 

 equality and freedom which have always animated the people of 

 New England. These principles he uttered in words whose 

 simplicity goes straight to the hearts of the whole American 

 people. Whether these principles be ultimately true or false is 

 no concern of ours here. They are the principles which must 

 prevail if our republic is to live. And in the verses of Whittier 

 they are preserved to guide posterity in the words of one who 

 was incapable of falsehood. 



1893. Barrett Wendell. 



ASSOCIATE FELLOWS. 



* 



WILLIAM FERREL. 



It is particularly fitting that our Proceedings should contain some 

 memorial of William Ferrel, for it was in this community that he 

 first found a broad scientific association, after a boyhood of unrecog- 

 nized genius and a manhood of mental isolation. It was only at the 

 age of forty that he found companionship with men of ability like his 

 own, and then he was so retiring by disposition and habit that he 

 could but slowly embrace the wider opportunities opened to him. 



A memoir of Ferrel by his associate, Professor Cleveland Abbe, 

 was read before the National Academy in April, 1892, and appended 

 to this appreciative review of his life we find a brief autobiographical 

 sketch prepared a few years before his death, and a list of his pub- 

 lished writings. This memoir may be referred to for fuller informa- 

 tion, as I shall here attempt only to emphasize certain prominent 

 features of his character, and certain of his greater accomplishments. 



In recalling the work of the four great meteorologists of our coun- 

 try, — Redfield and Loomis, Espy and Ferrel, — the first two of them 



