208 Obituary. 



and well executed works, on a subject of great interest to our coun- 

 try. We shall hope still to receive a more extended notice of them 

 and of the subject, which was promised for the present number of 

 this Journal. 



OBITUARY. 



Died in New Haven, his native town, Feb. 3, 1830, Col. Jared 

 Mansfield, LL. D. aged 71, formerly surveyor general of the Uni- 

 ted States, and recently and for many years, both before and after his 

 holding the office of surveyor general. Prof. Nat. Phil, in Mil. Acad. 

 West Point. He was graduated at Yale College in 1777 — ^visited 

 England in his youth, was early employed as an instructor of the 

 Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, and afterwards of that sus- 

 tained by the friends at Philadelphia ; when a little boy he discovered 

 a strong taste for mathematics, and great ability in that subject. He 

 was accustomed to examine the students in Yale College at the pub- 

 lic examinations and although he did it with great kindness and can- 

 dor, the students feared his questions because they had no connex- 

 ion with their text books, but grew out of a comprehensive and fa- 

 miliar knowledge of the whole science. About thirty years since, he 

 published a volume of essays, mathematical and physical, which 

 were highly appreciated by those who were masters of the subjects. 

 He introduced great improvements in surveying the public lands, and 

 was distinguished for zeal and success in the important duties of an 

 instructor at West Point. He was familiar, from early life, with New- 

 ton's Principia and with the other works of the great masters of that 

 school and age of philosophy, as well as of more ancient and modern 

 times. His admiration of Newton was almost a passion, as appears 

 from the retrospective reviews written by him and inserted in Vols. 

 XI. XII. and XIII. of this Journal. 



Col. Mansfield was much beloved by his numerous friends and 

 pupils, and among the latter are some of our most eminent engineers 

 and mathematicians. 



He was a warm friend to the cause of science, and to this Journal 

 and its editor, as humble agents in promoting it ; and his active services 

 in the common cause were rendered in a manner so cordial and disin- 

 terested, as at once to increase the sense and lighten the pressure of 

 obligation. Col. Mansfield was one of those men whose life and la- 

 bors have added to the knowledge, the honor and the happiness of 

 their country. 



