MEMOIR OF OEKSTED. 183 



liim witli the gold ring of a doctor, on wliich was engraved a head of Minerva 

 encircled with diamonds. The Seigniory of the association of students notified 

 him that he had been elected an honorary member of that society, and a depu- 

 tation of the Guild of arts and trades tendered him thanks for what he had done 

 in bcdialf of the industry of the country. 



To all the discourses addressed to him Oersted replied with a force, a com- 

 posure and a choice of expressions which surprised the assistants. The choir of 

 the students commenced and terminated the fete \vith a chant, the words of 

 which had been corajxised by one of the best poets of Denmark. In the even- 

 ing a procession with torches and a new chant by the students greeted the object 

 of this enthusiastic commemoration. 



The day on which classes so numerous and so diversified had vied with each 

 other in testifying for him their aiiection and admiration must have been to 

 Oersted one of the sweetest of his life. He had received from his sovereign and 

 his fellow-citizens the most exalted testimonials of esteem with which any Dan- 

 ish savant had been ever honored, and, in spite of his modesty, his conscience 

 could not have failed to insinuate to him that he was not unworthy of them. 

 The hope of passing his last years, surrounded by his family and dedicated to a 

 tranquil scientific activity, in the smiling retreat which his countrymen had 

 thought proper to ofler him, was calculated to blend the satisfaction of the heart 

 with the consecration of his renown. Yet this pleasing hope was but a decep- 

 tive gleam, and although his mind, still vigorous, and his frame replete with life, 

 seemed yet to promise length of days, it was not granted to Oersted so much as 

 to take possession of his new domicil, for before the return of spring ho had 

 ceased to live. 



He died at Copenhagen, 9th March, 1851, at the age of seventy-three years and 

 seven months, removed unexpectedly and in but a few days, by a simple 

 catarrh contracted l)y studying of a morning in too cold an apartment. His 

 death was a profound and general grief for the city of Copenhagen and for all 

 Denmark.* In that grief, this Academy, in common with the whole scientific 

 world, bore no indiflerent or simulated part. 



Oersted was replaced in the list of our eight foreign associates by the cele- 

 brated chemist of Berlin, M. Mitscherlich, to whom crystallography is indebted 

 for the most important progress it has made since Haiiy. M. Mitscherlich had, 

 in his youth, associated himself with the labors of the Scandinavian scientific 

 school ; and this choice, justified by other reasons, might be regarded as a new 

 and last homage rendered to the memory of Oersted as well as to that of Ber- 

 zelius. 



No scientific body had been backward in crowning with its suffrage the great 

 discovery of Oersted. To make an enumeration -of more than fifty societies 

 which inscribed his name among those of their correspondents or their foreign 

 associates, would l»c little less than to draw up a complete? list of the i)rincipal 

 Academies of the two hemispheres. More than one sovereign had been emulous 

 of associating himself with the movement of public opinion in his behalf. He 

 was advanced to the class of grand-cross of the Danish order of Danel)rog, 

 grand-cross of the Swedish order of the Polar Star, member of the order of 

 Merit of Prussia, and officer of the Legion of Honor. 



Oersted was not only eminent as a physicist, profound as a thinker, ho was 

 a man of rare excellence of character. Author of one of the capital discoveries of 

 the centuiy, promoter of one of the schools which confer most honor on his country, 

 founder of many important scientific and literary institutions, dear to the youth 

 and to the public of Copenhagen, whom he had charmed dtu-ing 50 years l)y a 

 system of poetic and philosophic ideas in harmony with their natural instincts, 



* Two'lmudred thousand persons, preceded*by tfie princes of the royal family, followed 

 the body of Oersted to its resting phico. 



