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cumstances, he promptly resolved to forego his intention of visiting 

 Italy, and to return to the United States. Embarking at Havre in the 

 spring of 1839, he reached in safety his home; where the attentions of 

 domestic kindred were found to be more efficacious than the skill of 

 the physician. 



Mr. M'llvaine, possessing an estate in Burlington, New Jersey, 

 his summer residence was in that agreeable retreat; but he was ac- 

 customed to sojourn, during winter, in our capital, as affording 

 greater incentives to social intercourse, or literary and scientific in- 

 vestigation. His health being now re-established, and being uncon- 

 trolled by any settled occupation, he appropriated his leisure hours to 

 those pursuits which were most congenial to his disposition, and con- 

 sequently most conducive to his happiness. Judging from external 

 appearances, his friends flattered themselves with the hope, that the 

 life of one whom they so highly esteemed was destined to be pro- 

 longed for many years to come. But this expectation proved to be 

 illusive; for in the morning of the eighth of August, 1854, finding him- 

 self suddently ill, he was prevailed witn to retire to his chamber. 

 While a physician was noting the symptoms of his disease, paralysis 

 became manifest; this, in the following morning, was succeeded by 

 apoplexy, the precursor of death, which shortly ensued. He was inter- 

 red in the cemetery of St. Mary's Church, in the town of Burlington. 



Mr. M'llvaine's scholastic studies having been strictly classical, he 

 was sedulous in his endeavours for improvement in those branches of 

 knowledge which are essential to good breeding. With English litera- 

 ture, in general, he was conversant; but he occasionally superadded 

 investigations of a scientific character, as offering an ampler scope 

 for intellectual exertion. The defects in chronological tables, which 

 are sanctioned in colleges, having excited his attention, he was in- 

 duced thereby to investigate the cause. The result of his labours 

 appears in a " Memoir explanatory of a New Perpetual Calendar, 

 Civil and Ecclesiastical, Julian and Gregorian." This Memoir was 

 read to the American Philosophical Society on the 15th of August, 

 1845. A supplement was read on the 18th of December, 1846; and 

 an appendix on the 15th of July, 1847. The whole appears in the 

 tenth volume, new series, of our Society's transactions. 



For the advancement of the science of geology, which, of late, has 

 happily invited so much of the regard of the public, and which is so 

 closely connected with the permanent prosperity of our country, he 

 felt a lively interest; encouraged, probably, by his friendly relations 



