C4 JOURNAL OF THE; 



well infonned concerning all that wasa dr)ing throughout the worFd"^ 

 In organic as well as inorganic? Chemistry. Indeed the shelves of 

 his Laboratory and of his ware-rooms fully illustrated the Chrono- 

 logy of Art in that Science. They contained what instruments had 

 been useful as well as what were the fittest to survive. His oldest 

 Instruuients, whether of metal or of glass, were almost all made in 

 Europe. His latest, far simpler, more elegant, and more useful, 

 were made in Northern workshops, or were the products of his own 

 handiwork, guided by his own ex, erienceand rertection. We should 

 not forget the difficulties that beset a N;ituralist in North Carolina 

 in Dr. Mitchell's time. During a great part of that lime there was- 

 not a railroad in North Carolina, and the common roads were very- 

 vile. Travel through the State to visit a Botanical, a Geological^ 

 or a Mineralogical 'egion was almost entirely in private convey- 

 ances. Books and Apparatus were sent forwards and backwards^ 

 from Chapel Hill to Philadelphia, or New York, or Boston only 

 thrrugh wagons to Petersburg, or New Berne, or Fayetteville, and 

 thence by boats and schooners. In 1830 it cost more time aiid 

 worry for Dr. Mitchell to get Chemicals, or an Instrument front 

 Philadelphia than, in 1850, it did his successor from Berlin. 



It is to be regretted that Dr. Mitchell's time as a student was di- 

 vided by his labors as a teacher into parts so small, and so separate^ 

 that he could not engage in any work that demanded all his atten- 

 tion for a period longer than that afforded by a vacation of the 

 University^. IJe was much interested in the improvement of North 

 Carolina — was always ready to give advice that was valuable, be- 

 cause of his large acquaintance within and throughout the State. 

 The surveys for some of its roads he superintended in person. But 

 these exertions were limited by his duties at the University. These 

 he regarded as of paramount importance. Very rarely was Dr. 

 Mitchell ever absent from his office at the beginning a college term, 

 or from his seat at College Prayers, or from his de.^k in the lecture 

 room, or from his duties in the pulpit, or from the weekly Faculty 

 meeting. It was this conscientiousness, respecting duties imposed 

 on him by authority, that circumscribed his original labors in the 

 fields of Science, and rendered that fragmentary which otherwise 

 might have presented a well ordered totality. A striking instance 

 of this occasional working, and of the trouble which it caused, is to 

 be found in the history of his examinations of the mountains of 

 North Carolina. He had notic^Ti that the Michaux — father and son, 

 had both surmised that in our State, on the Grandfather, or the 

 Black Mt., would be found the highest ground this side of the Mis- 



