282 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



the value both of scientific and literary culture. Endowed with singu- 

 lar eloquence as a lecturer on his favorite science, he inspired in the 

 minds of the successive classes of students, who for fifty years enjoyed 

 his instructions, a rare interest in geology and a personal devotion which 

 was unrivalled. Nor was he less reverenced as a religious teacher ; and 

 the announcement Of a sermon from Sedgwick always attracted a large 

 audience of admirers at the University. Alike by his learning, his 

 eloquence, his philosophic insight, his rare love of truth, his simplicity, 

 his piety, and the singular personal influence which he exerted on all 

 those who came in contact with him, he was not only a great moral 

 power in the University for more than sixty years, but merits the lan- 

 guage of one of his late eulogists, who declares that " the life of Sedg- 

 wick has raised the character of the whole people of England." 



The last years of his life were rendered painful by deafness, imjiaired 

 eye-sight, and advancing infirmity. He was, however, able last summer 

 to accomplish his usual residence of a few weeks at Norwich, where his 

 ecclesiastical duties as a canon of the cathedral required his presence, 

 and in October, 1872, writing from Trinity College to a friend in Boston, 

 says : " I am again settled in this grand old College, which has been my 

 chief home since my freshman year, 1804. Since then what mighty 

 changes have been in the moral and political aspects of the world ! " In 

 a still more recent note written by his own hand, on receiving the intel- 

 ligence of our great fire in November last, he expressed his anxiety 

 for the welfare of his Boston correspondent, and his belief that he should 

 not survive till the spring time, but adds, " I await death with a good 

 Christian hope, and send you an old-fashioned offering, — an old man's 

 blessing." 



Christopher Hansteen was born on September 26, 1784, in 

 Christiania, Norway, and died at the same place, on April 11, 1873, in 

 the eighty -ninth year of his age. After the foundation of his education 

 had been laid in the Cathedral school of his native city, he entered the 

 University of Copenhagen in 1802, becoming a student, at first of law, 

 and afterwards of mathematics. In 1806 he was appointed teacher of 

 mathematics in the Gymnasium of Fredericksburg, in Zealand. As 

 early as in the year 1807, his interest in the study of Terrestrial Mag- 

 netism was excited by the inspection, at Upsala, of a globe, on which 

 was delineated the neighborhood in which the southern magnetic pole 

 was situated. This interest was soon kindled into a flame, which 

 burned brightly to the end of his life ; and which, spreading from mind 

 to mind, and from country to country, at length produced, on the call 



