OBITUARY. 25 



ties of life, and from the office that he so honorably filled in this 

 Institute, at the ripe age of nearly seventy-one years. Such an 

 event naturally awakens a tender interest in all that distinguished 

 him as a valued member of this Institute, a gentleman and a 

 scholar, and excites a desire to perpetuate his name in the archives 

 ci' an Institute that he so efficiently aided and adorned. 

 \ James Renwick, lately corresponding secretary of the American 

 Institute, was born in Liverpool, England, on Thursday, the 30th 

 of May, 1792. His father was a merchant of high respectability 

 in \he city of New York. He went on business to Scotland, and 

 theie married Miss Jeffrey, the daughter of a Scottish clergyman. 

 Afte^ spending some years in Britain he returned to New York, our 

 corresponding secretary being two years old. Mr. Renwick was 

 educated in this city, and at a very early age showed a decided 

 love for literary pursuits. At the early age of eleven years he 

 entered Columbia College, and at the age of fifteen he graduated 

 at the l^ead of his class. At the age of twenty-one, in compliance 

 with th^ dying request of Dr. Kemp, the eminent man who had 

 been hi& preceptor, he took charge of his class, and carried the 

 young m^.n forward in their studies until they graduated with 

 honor to themselves and their youthful teacher. 



In 181Y then in his twenty-fifth year, he was appointed a trustee 

 in Columbia College. This post of honor he held for three years, 

 and resigned it only when he was appointed to fill the chair of 

 natural phibsophy and chemistry. To these branches were added 

 geology and\mineralogy, and for a long time he also taught the 

 sublime science of astronomy. Mr. Renwick's close application to 

 study, aided oy a most retentive memory, enabled him not only to 

 keep up with, but often to be in advance of the times, in those 

 most difficult laranches of human learning. 



In 1838 he ^xas appointed one of the commissioners for the sur- 

 vey of the northeastern boundary line; and it is well known to his 

 private friends that his letters to an old and influential friend in 

 England had mueh to do with the subsequent visit of Lord Ash- 

 burton to this cointry, and the friendly settlement of the question 

 pending between ihe two governments. Many years before that he 

 had made a barometrical survey of the Morris canal. In addition 

 to all his scientific attainments, he was a fine classical scholar and 

 a profound theologian. His knowledge, too, of painting and archi- 

 tecture was thorough. In point of fact, there was scarcely any 

 branch of human knowledge with which he was not perfectly con- 

 versant. Such was the man over whose loss we now mourn. 



The friends of James Renwick, the whole country, and especially 

 the American Institute, may well feel that his death is no commoa 



