41 



while confined to his room by his fatal illness, and the 

 material was drawn from the resources of his well-stocked 

 memory. 



In 1873 he was created a member of the National Academy 

 of Science, and for many years attended its sessions in Wash- 

 ington, even when so doing involved not a little incon- 

 venience. 



The last two years of his life he spent either in St. Luke's 

 H"S)'ital <>r confined to his room in the Park Avenue Hotel, 

 New York, but they were by no means years of idleness. He 

 wrote most of his Systematic Mineralogy when suffering from a 

 complication of diseases, which would have been a valid 

 excuse to any other man for physical and mental rest ; and 

 up to the day before his death, which took place on February 

 !_'. 1892, he spent hours at his desk, at work on a new book. 

 lie died sitting on his bed, fully dressed, his head leaning on 

 the table, fighting the grim enemy to the very last. His sole 

 pleasure, during those dreary months of confinement, was 

 tending his plants and llowers, for he loved them, not only as 

 a well-trained botanist, but with keen sympathy, as if they 

 had been sentient beings. They never offended his taste or 

 be sense of smell or irritated him as animals did. For 

 lie had almost a dislike. 



Apart from science Hunt wrote little or nothing. In his 



youth lie for a time believed himself a poet, and he composed 



a short epic and translated Latin hymns. The following 



verses express tin- mystical tendency of his mind at that 



>d : 



PRE&XI8TENOE." 



" Dreams that steal o'er me in my \\aking hours 



Tell of another life than that of earth, 

 For ante-natal memories sometimes come 

 O'er the dark flood my spirit crossed at birth. 



IBM in otln-r lands, 

 iimpsc-A of a life now mine no more ; 

 i^hts, too, that tell me that what is has been. 

 is I have known on some forgotten shore. 



