322 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



Incessant labor finally wore upon his health. "For some years 

 he appears to have fully recognized the fact that his day as an 

 active investigator was over, and he had contented himself with 

 directing others. When he was sent as advisory counsel by the 

 United States to the Halifax Fish Commission he prepared an 

 essay on fish culture into which he threw all the wealth of his 

 vast information and experience on this subject. He kept that 

 manuscript unpublished, hoping to add to it, but recently put it 

 in the press, and it is now in course of being printed, and will be 

 a posthumous contribution of inestimable value to the history of 

 the pursuit to which he gave so much time, and attention. In 

 like manner he lately placed the results of his ornithological 

 studies in the hands of Professor Ridgeway, and they are now 

 in course of publication by a leading Philadelphia firm. His life 

 is rounded and his career has closed with a record of achieve- 

 ments that will grow in public estimation the more it is con- 

 templated." 



When he went in June last, to Wood's Holl, the chief summer 

 station under the Commission of the Fisheries, he was much 

 broken in health ; and, although he rallied for a while, but a few 

 weeks passed before the end came. His wife and his daughter 

 survive him. 



Alvak Clarke died on the 22d of August at Cambridge, in 

 his eighty-fourth year, having been born at Ashfield, Massachu- 

 setts, March 8, 1804. The science of astronomy owes much to 

 Mr. Clarke. Through his skill and judgment, dependent largely 

 on delicacy of touch and sight, and the promptings of astronomi- 

 cal zeal started up by the discovery of some new double stars 

 made with an instrument of his own construction, he became 

 famous as a maker of telescopes, and had orders, more than he 

 could fill, from foreign as well as American observatories. His 

 discoveries led to correspondence with the English astronomer, 

 Mr. W. R. Dawes, and afterwards to some years of study abroad 

 between. 1850 and 1860. His first large telescope, 18-j inches in 

 diameter of object-glass is in the observatory at Chicago ; one of 

 26 inches at the tj. S. Observatory, Washington ; another of 

 the same size, at the Observatory of the University of Virginia; 

 one of 32 inches, at the Pulkowa Observatory, Russia; and one 

 of 36 inches at the. Lick Observatory of California. The Russian 

 telescope brought him a gold medal from the Czar. The manu- 

 facture of telescopes has been carried on by him in connection 

 with his sons, George B. and Albert Graham Clarke, who have 

 like skill and perfection of work. 



