mother belonged in intellect no less than by birth to a family distinguished 

 for ability and attainments, and was the sister of the eminent divine, Rev. 

 Dr. Nichols, who was second to no man of his time in vigorous thought, 

 lofty ideality, and kindling fervor of utterance, and who possessed, too, a 

 rare capacity and love for mathematical study and investigation. Our Pro- 

 fessor, by common consent unsurpassed in his chosen department, has not 

 transcended the expectation concerning him in his college days, when his 

 fellow-townsman and friend, the venerable Bowditch, foretold of the boy that 

 he would be the first mathematician of his age. His fellow-teachers here 

 had distinct prescience of what he would become, when his tutorship began. 

 While he already took longer steps in the class-room than permitted laggards 

 to keep pace with him, his enthusiasm inspired scholars of the higher order, 

 and made studies that had before been a weary necessity a privilege and a 

 joy. His earliest text-books, unequalled in their kind, marked an era in his 

 department, substituting rigid mathematical processes for easier, but looser 

 methods, which levied on the mind a lighter tax, but gave in return a much 

 scantier revenue. In the second year of his tutorship the absence of Pro- 

 fessor Farrar left him at the head of his department, of which he held the 

 direction till he could resign it, with the prestige of his name so worthily 

 maintained, to his son, of kindred taste and capacity. 



His work and his fame, before and since, have been world-wide. The 

 introductory volume of his " Physical and Celestial Mechanics " few have 

 read, because few could read it ; but by those few it has been regarded as the 

 most profound and thorough and enterprising work of the century, opening 

 vistas of speculation and research which may give direction and scope for 

 the greatest minds of coming generations. If he did not discover the planet 

 Neptune, he did more, in establishing, with the ultimate acquiescence of the 

 scientific world, a possible alternative solution of the disturbances of Uranus. 



At the same time, his practical services in the superintendence of the Coast 

 Survey and in connection with the Nautical Almanac have proved that the 

 highest science has its utilities for the working-day world, and can bear its 

 indispensable part in the arts most essential to human safety and well-being ; 

 nay, that nothing short of this in thoroughness and accuracy can meet the 

 just demands of an advanced civilization. 



Of late years his labors as an instructor have been nominally small, and 

 for very few pupils ; but never has he taught so efficiently, or with results so 

 well worthy of the mind and heart and soul which he has put into his work. 

 His students have been inflamed with his fervor, stirred to high ambition by 



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