from the data before him, he showed such a wonderful power of generaliza- 

 tion, that the papers he has given to the world only seem to indicate the 

 quality of work his mind had constahtly before it, and to afford no idea of 

 the multitudinous problems he had been interested in, and discarded as soon 

 as the solution became evident to himself. He habitually ascribed to his 

 listener a power of assimilation which the listener rarely possessed. He 

 assumed his readers could follow wherever he led ; and this made his lec- 

 tures hard to follow, his books brief, difficult, and comprehensive, and his best 

 work only when his listeners were students trained in his methods who had 

 already attained some skill as mathematicians. He was personally magnetic 

 in his presence. His pupils loved and revered him, and to the young man 

 he always lent a helping hand in science. He inspired in them a love of truth 

 for its own sake. His own faith in Christianity had the simplicity of a 

 child's ; and whatever radiance could emanate from a character which com- 

 bined the greatest intellectual attainment with the highest moral worth, that 

 radiance cast its light upon those who were in his presence. His works are 

 already scarce, and some of them hardly obtainable ; notably the second vol- 

 ume of his " Curves, Functions, and Forces," and his memoir on " Linear 

 Associative Algebra." It is much to be desired that the manuscripts he has 

 left be completed so far as possible, and made accessible ; and this work 

 could devolve on no person so well qualified as is his distinguished son, 

 Professor James Mills Peirce. L. VV. 



FROM NATURE FOR OCT. 28. 



WE regret to have to record the death at Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 6, of 

 Professor Peirce of Harvard University. . . . For the past thirty-five years 

 he has occupied a professorship at Harvard ; and as a lecturer, author, 

 thinker, and investigator, has ranked not only among the first of a numerous 

 corps of professors, but also among the first of American men of science. 

 Devoting himself originally to mathematics, Professor Peirce has successively 

 pursued exhaustive studies in all the branches more closely allied to mathe- 

 matics, and has attained eminence equally in physics, astronomy, mechanics, 

 and navigation. His numerous investigations in these various departments, 

 while read before various scientific societies, have been published, unfortu- 



