ADVERTISEMENT. 



The arrival of Professor Charles Phillips had been anxiously expect- 

 ed until the close of the ceremonies. He was, however, confined at home 

 by severe illness. At the conclusion of Bishop Otey's address, and before 

 the coffin was lowered into the grave President Swain remarked that the 

 duty of representing the University in these ceremonies had most unex- 

 pectedly devolved upon him. That the audience were aware, that his 

 friend and colleague, Professor Phillips, had carefully investigated the 

 points of controversy which had recently arisen with respect to the origi- 

 nal discovery of this mountain height. To the Professor's published pa- 

 pers he would refer for a more extended vindication of Dr. Mitchell's 

 fame than was necessary to his purpose.* 



President Swain said that in relation to this question, he was very loth 

 to indulge himself in a statement even of facts within his own knowledge, or 

 susceptible of direct proof, by persons then present whose truthfulness no one 

 would question. That his reluctance arose not merely from a consciousness 

 of his inability to do the full justice to the subject, anticipated from Pro- 

 fessor Phillips ; but from a painful apprehension, that anything he should 

 say might serve only to mar the effect of the most touching and interest- 

 ing exhibition of filial piety he had ever witnessed. That the venerable 

 Prelate to whom they had all listened with so much delight, had at an un- 

 reasonably short notice, in the midst of pressing engagements, harassing 

 anxieties and cares, left the sick-bed of a near relative, and travelled six 

 hundred miles from the Mississippi to the Alleghany, to pay a tribute 

 of respect and afi'ection at the grave of an instructor, with whom his inter- 

 course began quite forty years ago. This simple incident is all the evi- 

 dence that need be required of the true character of the living and the 

 dead. It is an incident, with the attendant circumstances, such as has 

 never occurred before and will never occur again. The moral sublime is 

 in beautiful harmony with the surrounding scenery. He who of the race 

 of men first stood in life, is the first to find repose, in death, on the highest 

 ascertained elevation on the continent, east of the Mississippi. Of the lat- 

 ter distinction, no one can divest him. Of his right to the former, the evi- 

 dence is believed to be scarcely less clear and conclusive. 



After referring to the fact that he was a native of the County of Bun- 

 combe, during five years one of their Representatives in the General As- 



*See University Magazine for March 1858, pp. 293-318. 



