GEORCfE BASIL DIXWELL. 523 



infused his own buoyant nature into all with whom he was brought in 

 contact, and reduced to a minimum the strained relations of pupil and 

 instructor. The same brilliant qualities that attracted men in the out- 

 side world made themselves felt in his teaching. The dry details of 

 science were enlivened by the light play of his fancy, and the charm- 

 ing method of his teaching seldom failed of arousing the dullest 

 intellect. Frank, impetuous, and generous, he was welcomed every- 

 where ; and none more sincerely mourn him than those who knew him 

 best as teacher, soldier, and associate. 



He was married, May 25, 1853, to Harrietta Keopuolani Richards, 

 daughter of Rev. William Richards, of the Sandwich Islands, and 

 adopted daughter of Samuel Williston of Eastharapton. 



GEORGE BASIL DIXWELL. 



George Basil Dixavell was born in Boston on the 15th of 

 December, 1814, being the third son of John Dixwell, M. D., H. C. 

 1796. He was fitted for college at the Boston Public Latin School, 

 and passed the examination for admittance to Harvard in 1830. 

 Although an excellent scholar and very promising in all departments 

 of study, circumstances induced him to adopt a commercial career ; 

 and, after a thorough preliminary training in a counting-house, he 

 accompanied his elder brother to India, and there began the life of a 

 merchant, which he pursued with few intermissions for the remainder 

 of his life, partly in Hindustan, but principally in China. His early 

 education and his natural bias turned him to the acquisition of lan- 

 guages and to the study of mathematics. He became an expert in the 

 Hindustani, and used it in his commercial intercourse with the natives 

 of India. Afterwards, while in Chiua for about fifteen years, he 

 studied the Mandarin dialect, and became an accomplished speaker and 

 writer of that language. 



He was for several years the Russian Consul-General at Hong 

 Kong, and he was also for some time the head of the municipal 

 government at Shanghae. 



He had a strong bias toward scientific investigation, and cultivated 

 the mathematics and physics, and later in life paid much attention to 

 dialectics. 



On his final return to America in 1873, he entered on a course of 

 investigation and experiment in regard to the use of superheated 

 steam, with results which were hailed by some scientists as of very 

 great value in view of practical improvement in the use of the steam- 



