NOTE. 



AT the time the foregoing excellent sketch was written, Professor 

 Peirce seemed to be unusually well. For several years the state of 

 his health had occasionally caused his friends some anxiety, but they 

 now thought that it was well established again. The time had by no 

 means come when those who knew him, either in his public or his 

 private life, could find reason to feel that he had begun to approach 

 the end of this world's usefulness or enjoyment. He was still in the 

 fulness of his faculties, of his judgment, of his interests, and of his 

 affections ; and seemed to be entering on a new period of vigorous, 

 fresh, and serene life. During the winter of 1879-80 and the ensuing 

 spring, he was active in many directions. He was the chief mover in 

 a series of weekly scientific meetings among the corps of the Univer- 

 sity, in which he not only sought to stimulate a searching discussion 

 of the questions of cosmical physics he was himself enthusiastically 

 studying, but warmly welcomed the topics which others brought for- 

 ward, with the unfailing interest he always showed in every true line 

 of investigation. With the assistance of a favorite pupil, he resumed 

 but too earnestly (for the zest with which he threw himself into this 

 work brought on his first attack) the study of the comet of 1843, an d 

 undertook the complete inquiry into all its successive appearances 

 from the beginning of astronomical records, incited thereto by hearing 

 of the remarkable observation, strongly recalling that comet, made in 

 South America by his friend Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould. He was 

 still deeply interested in his work of teaching, and had announced an 

 important new course on cosmical physics for the current year ; and 

 his teaching, whatever its defects in the view of the mere pedagogue, 

 and even from a higher standpoint, had in it elements of originality, 



