ELISHA MITCHELL. 28 1 



ell was the most noted of them all. During his occupation of 

 the chair of Mathematics, the doctrine of fluxions, or the cal- 

 culus, was introduced into the course, and the standard of at- 

 tainment was raised in other branches of the department. His 

 transfer to the chair of Natural Science was welcome to him. 

 Even while a Professor of Mathematics, according to Prof. 

 Charles Phillips, he had made frequent botanical excursions in 

 the country round Chapel Hill ; and after settling himself in 

 his new chair he extended and multiplied these excursions; 

 " so that when he died he was known in almost every part of 

 North Carolina, and he left no one behind him better acquainted 

 with its mountains, valleys, and plains ; its birds, beasts, bugs, 

 fishes, and shells ; its trees, flowers, vines, and mosses ; its 

 rocks, stones, sands, clays, and marls. Although in Silliman's 

 Journal, and in other periodicals less prominent, but circu- 

 lating more widely nearer home, he published many of his 

 discoveries concerning North Carolina, yet it is to be re- 

 gretted that he did not print more and in a more permanent 

 form. It would doubtless have thus appeared that he knew, 

 and perhaps justly estimated the worth of, many facts which 

 much later investigators have proclaimed as their own remark- 

 able discoveries. But the information that he gathered was 

 for his own enjoyment and for the instruction of his pupils. 

 On these he lavished, to their utmost capacity for reception, 

 the knowledge that he had gathered by his widely extended 

 observations, and had stored up mainly in the recesses of his 

 own singularly retentive memory." The notes of his excur- 

 sions, which are recorded in a series of blank books kept for 

 the purpose, give revelations of the habits of the author's mind J 

 they chronicle his walks over farms which he names, and ob- 

 servations of individual plants and other objects in specified 

 localities. "By such a rock," writes Mrs. C. P. Spencer, in an 

 article of reminiscences, " in such a field, is a plant that he 

 must identify. By Scott's Hole, near the willow is a Carex 

 that he must watch. March 29, 1821, he finds yellow jessa- 

 mine in bloom in Mrs. Hooper's garden, and ' in great abun- 

 dance on the creek below Merritt's mill.' . . . May 30, 1821, 

 occurs this note, that he had that day found the last of the 

 twelve varieties of oak that are within two miles of the univer- 

 sity ; then follows a list of the oaks and notes of their situa- 

 tion. ... In the third week of April, 1824, he began a new 

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