PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



on the one hand, or lack of proper sustenance on the other. 

 By striking the happy medium, he believed life might be indefi- 

 nitely prolonged. His last illness was of about three weeks' 

 duration, and caused by a carbuncle on the upper lip. After a 

 time the brain became affected and unconsciousness ensued, 

 which continued uninterruptedly until he passed away, having 

 seen but fifty-five and a half years. This early ending of his 

 life seems like the irony of Fate ! The many letters received 

 by the family after his death, from those with whom he had 

 been associated in his scientific career, filled with such heart- 

 felt expressions of sorrow and regret for the personal loss and 

 the loss to science, attest the estimation in which he was 

 held by them all. 



The original of the likeness accompanying. this sketch was a 

 daguerreotype the only portrait of any kind ever made of 

 Prof. Vanuxem. This was taken in a group in 1846, in the 

 early days of the art, when the arrangement of dress and pose 

 was not understood so well as afterward. Hence the eyes, 

 said to have . been his best features, are unfortunately cast 

 down, as he was told to look at the child seated on his knee. 

 The portrait is like him, but has not the pleasing aspect his 

 countenance always wore. 



