through nearly half a century. These related, some of them to Physics and Chemistry, more to Meteorology, to which he paid much attention, but most of all to the one department of Botany, with which he has inseparably connected his name. His only separate botanical work was a Report on the Herbaceous Flowering Plants of Massachusetts, made by him as one of the Commissioners on the Zoological and Botanical Survey of the State, recommended by Governor Everett, at the suggestion of the Boston Society of Natural History, as the complement of the Geological Survey by the late Professor Hitchcock. Although much less important than the well-known reports of his colleagues, Harris, Gould, Storer, and Emerson, it shows his predilection for botanical pursuits. But, aware that other duties must mainly fill his working hours, Professor Dewey wisely selected a special department upon which he could concentrate the endeavors his leisure might allow, and turn them to permanent account. He chose the large and difficult genus Carex for special study, and in it became a leading authority. His "Caricography" in Silliman's Journal began in the year 1824, and finished with a general index to the numerous articles scattered through forty-three years, in January, 1867. There are very few of our about two hundred North American species with which Dr. Dewey's name is not in some way associated, and of many he was the original describer.

Professor Dewey must have been one of the latest survivors of those whose taste for natural history was developed under the lectures of Amos Eaton, when that remarkable man commenced his career as a teacher in Western New England, and in Botany, having devoted himself perseveringly to a particular department, he became the most distinguished of that school. As teacher, man of science, citizen, and Christian minister, he was a specimen of the typical Western NewEnglander, a peer among those who have not only made that district what it is, but have also in great measure founded the institutions and determined the character of the now lengthened line of States westward from the Hudson to beyond the Mississippi. Highly esteemed and honored throughout an unusually long and useful life, in his serene old age he was very greatly revered.

DR. SAMUEL LUTHER DANA died at Lowell, Massachusetts, March 11, 1868, in the seventy-third year of his age, of the effects of a fall on the ice some weeks before.

Dr. Dana was a native of Amherst, New Hampshire, fitted for col

lege at Phillips Academy, Exeter, and entered Harvard University at the age of fourteen. Immediately after graduation he entered the army, and continued in active service as lieutenant of artillery till the close of the war of 1812. He then studied medicine, and in 1818 received the degree of M. D. from Harvard University. After practising as a physician, first at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and afterwards at Waltham, he was led by his special fondness for chemistry to give up his practice in order to engage in the manufacture of oil of vitriol and other chemicals. Having continued to superintend the works of the Newton Chemical Company for many years, he was in 1833 induced to accept the position of Chemist of the Merrimack Print Works in Lowell, a position which he held for the rest of his life.

With a breadth of view deserving of all praise, the founders of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company saw the importance of bringing science to the aid of art, and, from the outset, considered a regular chemist as indispensable in their print-works. When the first vacancy occurred, they were particularly fortunate in securing the services of Dr. Dana. Having an ardent love for science, rare aptness in tracing out causes, and untiring perseverance in applying principles to practice, he thenceforth devoted himself most industriously to matters connected with calico-printing. The first requisite for a good print is the thorough bleaching of the cloth. Dr. Dana made a full study of this subject, and succeeded in diminishing the number of operations which had before been deemed essential. His ideas were made known to the world by a communication sent to the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, and published, in part, in their Bulletin in 1836. His plan at first met with some opposition, but is now very generally used, and is commonly known as the " American method" of bleaching.

One of his earliest investigations related to the action of cow-dung in clearing calico of the thickening used in printing on the mordant; and he was thus naturally led to inquire into the nature of manures in general, and of the products of decay, then little understood, but afterwards more fully investigated by Malden and others, and distinguished as gein, humin, and ulmin. The collateral knowledge thus acquired was freely communicated to various friends, and awakened so great an interest that he was urgently requested by some of his appreciative fellow-citizens to deliver a course of lectures on the Chemistry of Agriculture. The request was complied with in the winter of 1839-40. The publication of these lectures being solicited as likely to prove of

great advantage to the agricultural interests of the Commonwealth, Dr. Dana condensed his notes into a pithy treatise, which was issued in 1842 under the quaint title of "A Muck Manual for Farmers,”a name indicative of the prominent idea of the work. Five editions of this book have been published in this country, and it has been reprinted in England. At the suggestion of Dr. Warren, he also wrote an Essay on Manures, for which a prize was awarded by the Massachusetts Society for promoting Agriculture. These labors awakened in his own mind such an interest in the tillage of the soil, that he bought a farm near Lowell for the purpose of testing his particular views, and successfully directed its cultivation for many years. seems to have found no occasion to modify the propositions which he laid down at first; though he might have seen fit to add some limitations to one or two of them, had he tried the unctuous bottom lands of the Mississippi Valley as well as the light soils of Middlesex County.

In point of time, originality, and ability, Dr. Dana stood first among scientific writers on Agriculture in this country, and his works have done great good. But the agricultural treatises by which he has become so well and favorably known were but the secondary results of his inquiry into the nature of cow-dung as related to calico-printing. The primary object was pursued with signal success. He found that the property of fixing mordants was owing, in a great measure, to the presence of phosphates, and that the cumbrous and costly animal excrement might be effectually replaced by cheap soluble phosphates prepared from bones. As the discovery came to be rendered fully available in the regular routine of work, the fifty cows which had been constantly kept by the Merrimac Company were sold off, and a few barrels of burnt bones were occasionally brought into the Works under a name understood only by the initiated. Dr. Dana as an employee of the Company was not allowed to secure a patent for the invention, and thus received no personal benefit from it, though it has effected an immense saving to others. But another person, with a full knowledge of what had been done at the Merrimac Print Works, went to England and sought to turn the discovery to account there; and it was then found that Mercer had at the same time been making similar trials. In fact the English and the American chemist independently originated the use of dung substitutes. But probably to Mercer must be conceded the priority of experiments by a few months, while Dana was the first to make the substitution a complete success in actual prac

tice.

Neither gained full credit for the discovery, because in neither case was the matter made public till Mercer, finding himself not to be in exclusive possession of the idea, joined with others and patented the use of phosphates and arseniates for dunging.

In 1840, Dr. Dana, at the request of the city government of Lowell, made a careful examination of the various well-waters of the city, with reference to their action on lead pipes. And his interest in this important sanitary matter did not end with the presentation of his welldigested report; but for the sake of making generally known the insidious danger then so little understood by physicians themselves, he supervised the translation and publication of Tanquerel on Lead Diseases, with valuable annotations, the work of translation being done chiefly by his daughters.

In 1851 the manufacture of rosin-oil was brought to his notice, and he contributed much to the improvement of that branch of industry. In 1860, Dr. Dana gave his library, containing many rare and valuable chemical books, to Harvard and Amherst Colleges.

From the excellence of what he published, we might have expected a valuable work on general agricultural chemistry, had he been able to fulfil the partial promise made at the close of his prize Essay on Manures. But in later years his time was occupied by the daily duties of his position and the management of his farm, his health not always allowing him to labor as actively in scientific matters as his ever-lively interest would prompt. Dr. Dana was so quiet as well as accurate and thorough in his work, and so concise in the expression of his thoughts, that he could be fully appreciated by few. But his earnest devotion to truth, the precision and extent of his knowledge, his high sense of honor, and his conspicuous integrity of character, commanded the fullest respect and confidence of all who knew him.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM SMYTH was born in Pittston, Maine, February 2, 1797, but in his childhood his parents removed to Wiscasset, which was his home till he entered college. The story of his early struggles to obtain a liberal education, of his indomitable perseverance, his self-sacrificing, independent spirit, and the success and reputation of his subsequent life, furnishes most valuable lessons for the young. His preparatory course for college he pursued alone, without regular instruction, at intervals of work as a teacher; the last two years at Gorham, Maine, where he was an assistant in the Academy with Rev. Reuben Nason (Harv. 1802), an accomplished classical and mathe

matical teacher, whose counsel and aid he always gratefully acknowledged. He entered Junior at Bowdoin, September, 1820; and, though from late hours of preceding years over Greek and Latin he was compelled to study by another's eyes (his lessons being read to him by his chum), he graduated, 1822, with the first honors of an able class. In 1823 he received appointment as Proctor and Instructor in Greek at his own College, and, soon after, as Tutor in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.

Thus called to a new department of instruction, he detected in himself and revealed to others the peculiar talent- it may be said, original power which has given him so much of a name, and reflected so much reputation on his Alma Mater. The predilection of the student had been decidedly for Greek. His success, however, rarely equalled, as a teacher of Algebra, excited quite an enthusiasm in his classes, and thus was designated the eminently fit person to relieve Professor Cleaveland, who had held that department from the opening of the College, and had added Chemistry and Mineralogy to the list of his multifarious duties. In 1825 he became Adjunct Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and in 1828 full Professor.

With the deep enthusiasm of his nature he at once gave himself to the study of the French systems; read the Mécanique Celeste, and soon began the work of preparing text-books for his classes. In 1830 he published an Algebra, which was among the first in this country in which the French method was employed. This passed through several editions and then gave place to two separate works, the Elementary and the Larger Algebra. There followed, in rapid succession, Treatises on Plane Trigonometry and its Applications, on Analytical Geometry, and the Calculus, of this last a second edition appearing in 1859.

terest.

A man of quick sensibility to questions of right and wrong, of deep religious principle, and of ardent and indefatigable nature, he could not be indifferent to any worthy object of philanthropy or of public inHis enthusiasm was fired by the struggles of the Poles for national life, and then by the Hungarian Revolution. He studied the strategy, was familiar with every phase, political or military, of those movements, and with the qualities of the leaders. As an earnest Christian man, he could not but feel a lively concern in the case of the Cherokees in our country, as a great question involving national justice and honor. He early took decided position in the slavery discussion, and, besides writing in the public press, prepared some of the ablest