APPRECIATIONS 443 
to be ruffled or disturbed. Extraordinary as his mental 
faculties were, he had evidently added to their efficiency 
by severe discipline, for he possessed that infallible mark 
of a well-trained mind, of having all of his great and diver- 
sified stores of knowledge classified and grouped together 
in his brain according to subjects; so that he could call 
up his whole knowledge of any subject at a moment’s 
notice. Another remarkable thing about Prof. Baird’s 
mental composition was that with a thoughtful, scientific 
cast of mind, were united qualities of the most practical 
character. Prof. Baird was a scientific man by nature. 
He loved science and scientific studies; but at the same 
time no man had a sounder judgment or a clearer head 
in the management of practical affairs than he. It is 
very rare to see scientific and practical qualities of mind 
united in such an eminent degree as they were in Prof. 
Baird. 
Prof. Baird was gifted with still another unusual 
mental endowment which reminds one strongly of one of 
the traits of the first Napoleon. With that comprehen- 
siveness of mind which takes in the broad features and 
large general outlines of a great enterprise, he combined, 
as Napoleon did, a capacity for close and thorough atten- 
tion to all the details of a subject, down to the minutest 
item necessary to success. This combination, as we all 
know, is a rare one. As an illustration of Prof. Baird’s 
wonderfully retentive memory and easy grasp of details, 
as well as his gift, also remarkable, for a rapid dispatch 
of practical work, I may mention a little incident that 
occurred at Calais, Me., where I visited him in 1872, 
which has fastened itself on my mind ever since. He had 
received twenty-seven letters by the mail of the day before 
