ZADOC THOMPSON. 323 



parison of objects, he said, could be acquired quite as readily 

 in the country as in the city. He urged that the study of nat- 

 ural history should be introduced more generally into our col- 

 leges and common schools, for the reason that such a study 

 " would refine and improve the moral sensibilities of our peo- 

 ple, and sharpen and invigorate their intellectual powers." 

 Prof. Thompson's love for natural history was inborn, and 

 throughout his life amounted to absolute devotion. It was 

 the supreme force in his life. From early childhood until the 

 end, his diligent study of Nature and zeal in collecting facts, 

 and objects to illustrate them, never faltered. He was not 

 only a student of Nature but her ardent and most constant 

 lover. He also enjoyed mathematical studies and was fond 

 of statistics, and these qualities rendered his work in all 

 departments of science more accurate and orderly than it 

 might otherwise have been. 



Certain of his friends (his modest worth had made him 

 many of these), knowing his great desire to see the Exhibi- 

 tion of 1851 at London, furnished him the means of making 

 the trip. After an absence of three months, during which he 

 had spent some time in Paris, he returned to his home in 

 Burlington much benefited in spirit and in health. Yielding 

 to repeated solicitation, he published soon after his Journal 

 of a Trip to London, Paris, and the Great Exhibition in 1851, 

 which gave a most realizing impression of what he had seen to 

 those who had not made the trip. 



In the ten years following the publication of his History of 

 Vermont, railroads and telegraphs were introduced into the 

 State, and various discoveries in its natural history were made, 

 all of which furnished him material for a valuable supplement 

 of sixty-four pages, issued early in 1853. The General Assem- 

 bly of this year discovered what a blunder had been made in 

 strangling the geological survey, and passed a bill appointing 

 Prof. Thompson State Naturalist, " to enter upon a thorough 

 prosecution and completion of the geological survey of the 

 State, embracing therein a full and scientific examination and 

 description of its rocks, soils, metals, and minerals ; make care- 

 ful and complete assays and analyses of the same, and prepare 

 the results of his labours for publication under the three follow- 

 ing titles, to wit : first, Physical Geography, Scientific Geology 

 and Mineralogy ; second, Economical Geology, embracing Bot- 



