54 



The edifice now occupied as the Mint was erected under his 

 directorship and through his agency in procuring the necessary acts 

 and appropriations by Congress. His foresight and enterprise are 

 strikingly illustrated, by his knowledge of the advance in science 

 applied to the arts, and his efforts to place the institution over which 

 he presided, at the head of all similar establishments. 



With this view the writer of this notice was charged with a special 

 mission to Europe, under instructions from Dr. Moore, which em- 

 braced every department of mint operations, but especially referred 

 to the important discoveries emanating from the researches of Gay- 

 Lussac and other distinguished chemists ; particularly the assay of 

 silver by the humid process, which gave to that art, perfect precision 

 and exactitude in place of the allowances and liabilities to which it 

 had been previously so subject, and the consequences of which were 

 so embarrassing. 



The parting process by sulphuric acid, then new, was also promi- 

 nently embraced in those instructions; but it is impossible, in the 

 limits to which this brief memoir is confined, to notice a tithe of the 

 objects, chemical, mechanical and financial, included in the instruc- 

 tions referred to; they showed that the mind of the author embraced 

 a wide field of observation, and that he was alive to all progress in 

 every department of science. 



He relinquished his honorable ofiice by resignation, to the regret 

 of the department, doubtless in consequence of the inadequate com- 

 pensation for such services and the attractive prospects which his fore- 

 sight evidently anticipated from the development of the coal interests 

 of his native State, which he lived to realize, after many vicissitudes, 

 in their fullest extent. 



Dr. Moore served his country in Congress, under the dictates of 

 sound patriotic principles, through three terms, beginning in 1818; 

 it is known to his family and some of his intimate friends, that one 

 of the great measures of the day (for there were dark days then as 

 now, threatening the greatest of evils to our country), was devised 

 and written out by him, and ultimately enacted into law, thus saving, 

 for the time being, this distracted country from troubles that have 

 since assumed so formidable an aspect. Other patriots have now the 

 honor of these memories; he with his characteristic "delicacy" did 

 not claim them during life, and we shall not publish what he did not 

 choose to make known as his own ; any other course might not have 

 his sanction if he was still with us in life. 



Dr. Moore was an early graduate (in the year 1791) of the Uni- 



