ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. I7 



widow, the fatherless and the stranger found in him a liberal bene- 

 factor. 



'Although Dr. Mitchell used his pen freely in correspondence with 

 his friends, and published, in the newspapers of the day, much in- 

 formation valuable especially to the citizens of North Carolina, it 

 is to be regretted that he did not place his contributions to Science 

 and Religion where they might have been more easily and perma- 

 nently accessible to all Students of Nature. To the pages of Silliman's 

 Journal, however, he contributed several interesting and instructive 

 papers. E. g. In January, 1830, on A Substitute for Welther's 

 Safety Tube, and on The Cxeology of the Gold Regions of North 

 Carolina. In January, 1831, on The Causes of inds and Storms. 

 In April, 1831. An Analysis of the Protogsea of Leibnitz. In July, 

 1831, A reply to Redfield's criticism of his article on Winds and 

 Storms. In January, 1839, Observations on the Black Mountains in 

 North Carolina. After this time the great increase in the number 

 of students at the University, and the consequent increase of his 

 labors as Professor, and as Bursar, precluded such work as this. To 

 the end of his life he was, nevertheless, a close observer and a fre- 

 quent critic of what was going on in the world of Science, Religion, 

 and Politics. His pamphlet on "The other side of the Book of 

 Nature and the Word of God, ' and a large quantity of unpublished 

 MSS. show^ed that he was deeply interested in the discussions that 

 preceded the war of Secession. Had he lived to see this great civil 

 commotion, he would doubtless have manifested a deep sympathy 

 with the people among whom he had cast his lot in the prime of his 

 manhood. 



Dr. Mitchell perished by falling from a precipice on the Black 

 Mountain, on the night of Saturday, June 27th, 1857. He was 

 descending the mountain alone to visit William Wilson, his faithful 

 guide of 1835, whom he had not seen in twenty-two years. A storm 

 on Mitchell's Peak delayed his descent so that his watch, when he 

 was found, marked nineteen minutes past eight. He was found on 

 the 8th of July by Mr. Thomas Wilson, the "big Tom Wilson" of 

 Harper's Magazine, for November, 1857, who with some. two hun- 

 dred mountaineers was searching lor Dr. Mitchell in every glen of 

 that fearful mountain mass. He had fallen some forty feet into a 

 deep pool in a branch of the Sugar Camp Fork of Caney River, not 

 far from the route he had pursued with William Wilson in his first 

 visit to those high places. He was buried first at Asheville, N. C, 

 on the 10th of July, but afterwards, at the solicitation of many 

 friends — but especially of the mountain men of Yancey county — his 



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