1864.] 443 [Goodwin. 



OBITUARY NOTICE OF THE REV. PROF. EDWARD 

 HITCHCOCK, D.Dr, LL.D. 



This distinguished member of the American Philosophical Society 

 died near the close of last February. The following leading facts of 

 his life, presented as dry chronological data, together with a general 

 estimate of his character and labors, are chiefly drawn from a funeral 

 discourse by Professor Tyler. 



"Dr. Hitchcock was born at Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1793; 

 was principal of the academy in his native place from 1815 to 1818; 

 entered the Congregational ministry in 1821, and continued the 

 pastor of a church until 1825, when he was elected Professor of 

 Chemistry and Natural History in Amherst College; he was ap- 

 pointed State Geologist of Massachusetts in 1830, and of the first 

 district of New York in 1836; was chosen President of Amherst 

 College and Professor of Natural Theology and Geology in 1844; 

 was appointed Commissioner of Massachusetts, to examine the Agri- 

 cultural Schools of Europe in 1850 ; retired from the Presidency of 

 Amherst College in 1854; was appointed to complete the Geological 

 Survey of Vermont in 1857 ; and continued to lecture in his Pro- 

 fessorship of Natural Theology and Geology till the time of his 

 death." 



Besides his membership in our Society, " his elections to member- 

 ship in literary and scientific associations in his own country and in 

 foreign lands, and his invitations to other fields and departments of 

 labor which he did not feel at liberty to accept, were too numerous 

 to be mentioned." 



" It is curious enough, that his first publication was a poem of five 

 hundred lines, which appeared in 1815, on 'The Downfiill of Bona- 

 parte.' It drew attention to the youthful author, and also procured 

 him some substantial benefits. His next appearance before the pub- 

 lic was in quite another capacity, that of a mathematician and astro- 

 nomer. The American republisher of the English Nautical Almanac 

 offered ten dollars to any man who should discover an error. The 

 young savant of Deerfield, then Principal of Deerfield Academy, sent 

 him a list of forty-seven errors, and, on receiving only evasive 

 answers, published the list. This drew forth a contemptuous reply, 

 in which the critic who has presun)ed to arraign the editor of the 

 Nautical Almanac, is spoken of as ' one Edward Hitchcock.' The 

 calculations for the next year were revised with great care, but no 

 sooner had the almanac appeared than that same Edward Hitchcock 



