434 



PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



the end of December, symptoms of mental alienation appeared, 

 and he was taken to the hospital at Mount Hope, near Balti- 

 more. Thence he was removed in the following April to Tren- 

 ton, N. J., where under the skilful care of Dr. Buttolph, the 

 superintendent of the institution, his disordered brain gradually 

 regained its normal tone. Visits of friends, correspondence on 

 the subjects of his researches, and finally his books and papers 

 were allowed him. While still at Trenton he computed the 

 ephemeris of Neptune for the American Astronomical Ephem- 

 eris of 1855. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Walker left the asylum 

 apparently cured, although much debilitated by his illness, and 

 went to Cincinnati for a visit to his brother, Hon. Timothy 

 Walker, intending to remain until the following spring. He 

 took in hand certain labours for the Coast Survey and pre- 

 pared to resume in full his former sphere of activity. He had 

 fixed a time for returning to Washington and re-engaged his 

 apartments in the city, but he was not destined to make the 

 journey. An attack of fever was followed by other maladies, 

 and Walker soon found himself engaged in a second severe 

 struggle with disease. In this condition Hamlet's problem 

 " To be, or not to be " forced itself upon his thought with 

 all its puzzling considerations. The sound mind in a sound 

 body can give but one reply to this problem, but coming as it 

 did to Walker at a moment when Reason was not firm in her 

 seat, it elicited the opposite response, and on Jan. 30, 1853, 

 he launched himself into the mysterious after-life. His re- 

 mains were placed in Spring Grove Cemetery, near Cin- 

 cinnati. 



The character of Sears Walker was marked by a childlike 

 simplicity which many persons could hardly realize was not 

 assumed to cover shrewd designs. He was impulsive, but his 

 impulses were always noble and generous. Highly magnani- 

 mous, he was always prompt to acknowledge an error, and to 

 overlook not only mistakes but even lapses from honour and 

 justice in others. Intellectually he had the ability of genius. 

 He was unadapted and disinclined for participation in the 

 world's affairs, and could not refrain sufficiently for his physical 

 welfare from intellectual labour. 



Although his fame was won in the abstruse field of mathe- 

 matics, his linguistic attainments were of a high order. In col- 

 lege he was as conspicuous for his classical as for his mathe- 



