OF ARTS AND SCIENCES: JUNE 8, 1869. 133 



atmosphere in which he delighted, and which he shed around his own 

 home and neighborhood, the world is indebted for the gifted astro- 

 nomical observer and computer, Miss Maria Mitchell. In 1831, the 

 daughter, though only thirteen years old, counted time for her father 

 while he observed the annular eclipse of the sun. From that time 

 until his death, the two worked together in perfect sympathy. Al- 

 though Mr. Mitchell had no official connection with Vassar College, 

 where he passed the last years of his life with his daughter, he ren- 

 dered valuable aid in its organization by his wisdom, his gentleness, 

 and his long experience as Overseer of Harvard College and member 

 of its visiting committees. The years spent in the Observatory of Vas- 

 sar College were remarkably happy. Only a year before his death he 

 wrote thus : " With scarcely a circumstance to throw a shade over my 

 declining years, I have made acquaintances among teachers and pro- 

 fessors which a prince might envy." And again he wrote: "I have 

 had my days of sorrow and of trial, but I know of no man, living or 

 dead, whose life has been so exempt from the evils common to man- 

 kind." 



Without much strength of constitution, Mr. Mitchell lived to the 

 advanced age of seventy-seven, and died at length of old age. He ap- 

 proached death, not only with calmness, but with cheerfulness. Although 

 an invalid for the last year of his life, and confined to his room for 

 several months, his mind lost none of its vigor, and his interest in 

 physical science continued without any abatement to the end. He 

 listened to the reading of a letter a few hours before he died, and 

 spoke only a few minutes before he ceased to breathe. 



Mr. Mitchell's character was that of the Christian gentleman. By 

 his sweetness and gentleness he won the love of all around him. He 

 had many friends, and it was scarcely possible that he could have a 

 single enemy. He was a lover of peace, and shed the sunshine of 

 peace into whatever circle he entered. A Quaker by birth, and 

 always in harmony with that sect, he illustrated in perfection its many 

 excellent characteristics. He was more of a thinker than a reader or 

 writer, and, under more favorable circumstances, might have been 

 widely known as a discoverer of truth. His principal writings are : 

 A highly appreciative account of the early history and achievements of 

 the Observatory of Harvard College, published in the Christian Ex- 

 aminer for March, 1851 ; two communications upon the Tails of 

 Comets, printed in Volume XXXVIII. of the American Journal of 



