48 t Obituary of Prof. Z. Thompson. 



careful and complete assays and analyses of the same, and pre- 

 pare the results of his labors for publication under the three fol- 

 lowing titles, to wit : 1st. Physical Geography, Scientific Geol- 

 ogy and Mineralogy. 2d. Economical Geology, embracing Bot- 

 any and Agriculture. 3d. General Zoology of the State." — 

 Session Laws, 1853, pp. 45, 46. 



He was pursuing the labors of this responsible task which 

 the State, honorably to herself and to him, had commissioned 

 him to perform, when his death sorely bereaved his family and 

 friends and the community. On the same day, three years be- 

 fore, his predecessor went to his long home ; both left the mat- 

 ter of a geological survey, in which they had delighted and had 

 spent long nights and laborious days, still unfinished. 



At the time of his death, Mr. Thompson was Professor of 

 Natural History in the University of Vermont, an institution 

 to which he had been greatly attached since his graduation in 

 1823. The self-taught naturalist who had devoted his life in a 

 quiet and unpretending way to independent scientific inquiry 

 and the labors of authorship and the ministry, died in his hum- 

 ble dwelling near the University, with his intellectual armor 

 on, ere "his eye had grown dim or his natural force abated." 

 Dr. Thomas M. Brewer, editor of the Boston Atlas, and a natu- 

 ralist of extended acquirement, thus alludes in touching lan- 

 guage to the death of his valued friend. 



" His loss, both as a citizen and a public man,' — he has not left 

 his superior in science behind him in his own State — is one of no 

 ordinary character. We have known him long and well, and 

 in speaking of such a loss we know not which most to sympa- 

 thize with, the family from whom has been taken the upright, 

 devoted and kind hearted head, or that larger family of science 

 who have lost an honored and most valuable member. Modest 

 and unassuming, diligent and indefatigable in his scientific pur- 

 suits, attentive to all, whether about him or at a distance, and 

 whether friends or strangers, no man will be more missed not 

 merely in his immediate circle of family and friends, but in that 

 larger sphere of the lovers of natural science, than Zadoc 

 Thompson." * •* *> * 



We have known him well since 1834, in his various relations 

 as a teacher, a clergyman, a Professor, a correspondent, and a 

 friend. During the quarter of a century in which he was de- 

 voted to the instruction of youth, to the labors of authorship, 

 and to scientific research, he exhibited ever an unselfish and 

 an unambitious spirit. He loved his pupils, his friends, his 

 church, his associates, his State, his town, and above all, his home. 

 As a teacher he was kind and thorough ; as a clergyman what 

 has been appropriately called his "deep and unconquerable 

 modesty of spirit" prevented his ever rising above the Diaconate 



