15 



from which is to be applied to augment the Conservator's salary, to in- 

 crease the collection of shells, as well as to other purposes, at the 

 discretion of the Section. All profits whiofi may be derived from 

 his conchological works and from his conchological publication bus- 

 iness are to be added to the fund. 



This provision, in connection with the present vast collections and 

 an almost perfect library, goes far towards establishing in the United 

 States the centre of conchology at the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia. 



Mr. Tryon was methodical in all bis ways, and unswervingly firm 

 of purpose. He always did what he believed to be right in face of 

 all opposition ; but he tranquilly considered argument against his 

 opinions, and gracefully yielded them whenever he could not answer 

 it. He passed much of his time in the academy at work among its 

 collections and books. For health's sake he appropriated time for 

 daily exercise in the open air, without much regard to the state of 

 the weather. On Saturday, January 28, 1888, while the temperature, 

 ranged between 12 and 17 F. and the wind was blowing freshly 

 from the north-west, he walked briskly in an easterly direction more 

 than a mile, and returning faced the wind. Paroxysms of difficult 

 breathing forced him to stop many seconds, and several times. On 

 reaching home he was much depressed physically ; his circulation 

 was abnormally slow and weak, but he soon rallied and seemed to 

 be surely recovering. In the course of two or three days a kind of 

 roseola, to which he had been liable at times since an attack of scar- 

 let fever in childhood, appeared, and towards the last became hern- 

 orrhagie. He died February 5, the eighth day after his cold walk 

 His father, a brother and a sister survive him. His mother died 

 December 23, 1869. He was a bachelor. As far as known he was 

 at no time inclined to change his celibate condition. 



Accepting a definition that poetry is merely the blossom and 

 bloom of human knowledge, Mr. Tryon was Laureate of the king- 

 dom of the mollusca. He well knew all its inhabitants they were 

 thousands and characterized every typical one in descriptive lines 

 full of knowledge but without poetic cadence or poetic measure of 

 any kind. But his whole attention was not given to those mollusks. 

 He had eyes for all natural objects. He was fond of flowers, had 

 studied botany successfully, and learned to botanize. In the summer 

 it was his custom to take long walks in the country. On reaching 

 home from those walks he was almost sure to be laden with flowers 



