McCLURE'S ACHIEVEMENT AND TRAGIC DEATH, 1897 



friends and students the conviction that he was a born 

 high priest of nature, whose chief mission in the world 

 was to reveal her secrets to mankind. He offered up 

 his life virtually a sacrifice to the cause of popular and 

 practical science, and in as lofty a sense as ever dignified 

 a Roman arena he was a martyr to the cause of truth. 

 To use the matchless figure employed by Bryon in 

 describing the death of Henry Kirk White, who died a 

 victim to his own passionate devotion to literary art, 

 he was like the struck eagle whose own feather "winged 

 the shaft that quivered in his heart." 



Just in harmony with this thought came countless 

 expressions of sympathy and condolence to the members 

 of Professor McClure's family when the sad news of 

 his death went abroad. One of the most touching, 

 and, to my mind, one of the most typical of all these 

 came from an obscure man in an obscure corner of 

 Kentucky. He was not a great man himself, as the 

 world counts greatness, this man in Kentucky; but 

 he knew a great man when he saw him. He had known 

 Edgar McClure ; and when he heard the circumstances 

 of his death he sat down and wrote a brief note. One 

 sentence in it was worthy of Whittier or Emerson. It 

 was this : " Edgar McClure died as he had always lived 

 on the mountain top." 



In transmitting his results to Horace McClure, 

 brother of the deceased scientist, Professor McAlister 

 brings to a proper close a labor of love, one that is as 

 creditable to his scholarly culture as it is to his un- 

 selfish and devoted friendship. 



HERBERT L. BRUCE. 



LETTER OF TRANSMISSION 



University of Oregon, 

 Eugene, Or., October 28, 1897. 



MR. HORACE McCLURE Dear Sir: I herewith 

 transmit to you for publication my report upon the 



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