OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : MAY 2G, 1863. 133 



ply these desiderata, so far as he could, in one department, by gather- 

 ing a choice botanical library, and a valuable herbarium, especially 

 rich in authenticated specimens and in standard North American col- 

 lections. These were most kindly placed at the disposal of working 

 botanists, even those of distant parts of the country ; and, to secure 

 their continued usefulness, were at length, by gift and by bequest, con- 

 signed to the Boston Society of Natural History, — of which Mr. 

 Greene was one of the founders, and the first President, — to which, 

 besides, he bequeathed a large legacy in money. 



In character, Mr. Greene was remarkably quiet and unobtrusive, 

 yet highly sensible, cultivated, and discriminating. Eminently kind 

 and disinterested, if he gave no thought to secure for himself a scientific 

 reputation, he should all the more be remembered for the wise and 

 considerate liberality through which he sought to promote the investi- 

 gations of others in a chosen department of natural history. 



Of the four Associate Fellows deceased, one of the most distinguished, 

 Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, was born on the 28th of August, 1810, 

 in Union County, Kentucky. With a scanty early education, and still 

 more scanty material wealth, he entered the Military Academy at 

 West Point in 1825, where he was graduated in 1829 with a class- 

 rank of fifteenth, and where for the next two years he was Assistant 

 Professor of Mathematics. Having resigned his commission as Sec- 

 end Lieutenant of Artillery, which bears the date of July 1, 1829, he 

 studied law in Cincinnati. But he soon left the practice of it for a 

 professorship of Mathematics and Astronomy in Cincinnati College, 

 which he held from 1834 to 1844. By his zeal and eloquence, an 

 enthusiasm for astronomy was created in the West, which resulted in 

 the establishment of the Cincinnati Observatory, with its admirable 

 equatorial telescope ; the corner-stone being laid in November, 1843, 

 in the presence of the venerable Ex-President John Quincy Adams. 

 In July, 1846, Professor Mitchel began the issue of the " Sidereal 

 Messenger," and he continued its publication for two years, to the 

 benefit of popular science. He also published a work on " Popular 

 Astronomy," and another on " The Planetary and Stellar Worlds." 

 At his chosen observatory he applied himself to the study of the 

 double stars in southern declination, and discovered the comjianion of 

 Antares. He also measured the time of rotation of Mars. Professor 

 Mitchel was one of the first to recognize the value of the electric 

 method of observing Risht Ascensions and Declinations, and he 



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