1884.] r-i 



•*■ [Carson. 



ivy that clambered about the windows, tlie venerable chestnut trees, the 

 liirsute shrubbery, the old pump, surrounded by a hedge of lilacs, were 

 the objects of his interested care. In the quiet burying-ground on the 

 hill, I have seen the great soldier, whose fame had penetrated Europe, 

 bend in respectful silence over the stone that marked the grave of some 

 forgotten relative, or have listened, as he trod the well-loved fields of his 

 childhood, to his recollections of those joyous days. 



Such was the man. As simple in his greatness as he was great in his 

 simplicity ; of noble strength in body, heart, and brain, a union of 

 opposites, a man who had devoted his whole life to the public good, and 

 yet one of whom the public knew but little, partly because of his modesty, 

 partly because his favorite studies were abstruse and recondite, but chiefly 

 because he had none of the instincts of the politician, and scorned the arti- 

 fices by which so many rise to popularity and fame. 



He died on the 27th of December, A.D. 1883, in the seventy-fourth year 

 of his age, while seated in his chair, without pain, and without a struggle. 



"The best death," said the great Roman, "is that which is the least ex- 

 pected." 



Fellow-members of the American Philosophical Society — In the bright 

 galaxy of names which adorn our rolls there are stars of the first magni- 

 tude, whose glories have fixed the gaze of nations. Historians, statesmen, 

 jurists, physicians, soldiers and philosophers — our great men have walked 

 upon the high places of the earth. Their exertions have manifested the 

 noblest intellectual power ; their industry has tilled every field of activity ; 

 their studies have sounded every depth of knowledge ; their daring zeal 

 has penetrated to the remotest bounds of science ; their devotion has made 

 willing sacrifice of property and life ; their success has won the highest 

 meed of honor. Our Franklin, our Rittenhouse, our Bartram, our Wistar, 

 our Kane, our Binney, our Sharswood, and he, whose recent death we all 

 deplore, that grand old man, whose noble life was spent in acts of public 

 usefulness and private benevolence which have endeared his name and 

 consecrated his example — our Price — are they not all men of whose achieve- 

 ments we can boast without afiectation, of whose deeds we can speak with 

 pardonable pride? 



Among these we now enroll the name of Humphreys. No chiseled 

 marble preserves his lineaments, no lofty columns proclaim his worth, no 

 demagogues attempt to conjure with his rod, but long after the fierce pas- 

 sions of our civil strife shall have burned themselves to ashes, long 

 after his services to the cause of the Union and free government shall 

 have risen to their proper place in military annals, when Oblivion shall 

 have wrapped Secession in her mantle, and fraternal affection shall have 

 buried the weapons of war, the memory of his scientific labors will live as 

 his most enduring monument. He tamed the raging of the floods ; he 

 snatched from devastation the most fertile and magnificent valley in the 

 world — the seat of future empire — and opened up the great Father of 

 Waters to the commerce of the globe. 



Let us add with pride — he was a Pennsylvanian and a Philadelphian. 



