It was natural that the phase of mineralogy, which to him 

 would have most attraction, and which he would most sym- 

 pathetically elaborate, would be the chemical. Minerals 

 being chemical compounds, he applied to the study of their 

 constitution and classification the chernico-physical law which 

 he had been groping after all his lite, and clearly formulated 

 only in 1886, viz., " that the value not only of gases and 

 vapors, but of all species, whether gaseous, liquid or solid, is 

 constant, and that the integral weight varies directly as the 

 density." Under the guidance of that law he propounded an 

 entirely new and original classification of mineral species. 



It was therefore preeminently as a chemist, whether he 

 was laboring in the laboratory or in the domain of geology 

 or of mineralogy, that Hunt was most at home, and that he 

 left his impress mi tin; science ot his dav, an impress which 

 will never be effaced. 



Thomas Sterry Hunt was proud of his second Christian 

 name, his mother's patronymic, as more than one of his 

 direct ancestors had made the name conspicuous and famdus. 

 !!< coull trace his descent almost without interruption from 

 that Peter Sterry who \vas chaplain first to Lord Brooke and 

 then to Oliver Cromwell who could preach Puritanism to 

 the Long Parliament, and astutely secure his own pardon 

 from Charles II. A much more uncompromising and tvpieal 

 preacher of the Commonwealth was a member of the same 

 stock, that Thomas Sterry who wrote A Riot Among the 

 Bishops ; or, A Terrible Tempest in the Sea of Canterbury. 



A branch of the family, consisting of three brothers, 

 Roger, Robert and Cyprian Sterry, and a sister, came to 

 America about 1753, and settled in Providence. Roger alone 

 left legitimate offspring. Two of his sons, John and Con- 

 sider, attained eminence as mathematicians and edited and 

 published The True Republican, a leading organ of the old 

 JefteiBonisn party. Nevertheless the world at large will 

 hardly subscribe to the epitaph which commemorates Con- 

 sider Sterry's fame in Norwich churchyard, Connecticut. 

 " Consider Sterry, aged 56 years; died November 15, 1817. 



