11 



ever plans he laid were generally sketched on a large scale, and when exe- 

 cuted, they were commonly well done. Although a man of strong feel- 

 ings, his excitement rarely lasted long, and he did not harbour resentment 

 even when he had to remove unjust suspicions, or forgive unmerited inju- 

 ries. His generosity was abundant, and was often appealed to again and 

 again. No friend of his ever asked him for help without getting all that 

 he could give him. In this he often swore to his own hurt yet he did not 

 change. 



Such were the leading characteristics of Dr. Mitchell who loved God 

 and every thing He has made ; and now, while his colleagues mourn for 

 one who counselled with wisdom and executed with vigour — while men of 

 Science miss the co-operation of a learned associate members of the Cabi- 

 net and Ministers to foreign countries, with Senators and Representatives 

 in Congress, Governors of our States with their Judges and their Legisla- 

 tors, Ambassadors from the Court of Heaven, and men of renown in 

 the professsions, learned Professors, with famous School-masters, and 

 thousands of other pupils in more retired positions rise up in all parts of 

 our country to do their revered preceptor high honor. His bow abode in 

 strength to the last, neither was his natural force abated. He died as 

 Abner died, and because they loved him unlettered slaves as well as migh- 

 ty men followed his bier weeping. 



Dr. Mitchell perished on Saturday, the 27th of June, 1857, in the six- 

 ty-fourth year of his age. He attempted alone to descend Mt. Mitchell 

 the highest peak of the Black Mountain which is in Yancey County, North 

 Carolina. But a thunder storm detained him on the mountain, so that it 

 was evening and dark as he was groping his way down the mountain's 

 iiides. Not far from nineteen minutes past eight — for his watch marked 

 that time — he pitched head-long some forty feet down the precipice into a 

 small but deep pool of water that feeds the Sugar Camp Fork of Caney 

 Eiver. At the bottom of this pool he was found on the 8th of July by 

 Mr. Thomas D. Wilson, who with some two hundred other mountain- men 

 "were looking for Dr. Mitchell in every glen on the sides of that fearful 

 anountain mass. This was the fifth visit that Dr. Mitchell had paid to 

 the Black Mountain, the others being in 1835, 1838, 1844, and 1856 re- 

 spectively. His object at this time was partly personal, and partly Scien- 

 tific. He wished to correct the mistakes into which some had ]>een led 

 concerning his earlier visits, and to so compare the indications of the 

 Spirit Level and the Barometer, that future explorers of mountain heights 

 might have increased confidence in the results afibrded them by these in- 

 -struments. His untimely end left both parts of this work to be completed 

 by the pious hands of others. 



