and distinguished men, selected at his suggestion or with his approval, as the professors.

In this connection, it will not be thought invidious if we allude to the agency of Mr. Lawrence in inducing Mr. Agassiz to establish his residence in the United States. This eminent naturalist arrived in this country, as a lecturer before the Lowell Institute, precisely at the time when Mr. Lawrence was maturing the project of the Scientific School. The peculiar fitness of Mr. Agassiz for a chair in such an institution did not escape his penetration, and the liberal appropriation, originally intended by him as the endowment of the school, was enlarged with a view to a more adequate provision for the celebrated foreigner just coming among us,happily no longer to be designated as such. The last days of Mr. Lawrence's life were soothed by the receipt of the interesting letter from Professor Peirce, given in the Daily Advertiser a few days since, and bearing witness to the great success of the Scientific School.

Mr. Lawrence, though not professedly a man of letters, had found time, in the intervals of business, for the acquisition of a great amount of miscellaneous knowledge by a judicious course of reading. His house was filled with books, paintings, and works of art; his conversation was at all times intelligent and instructive; his appreciation of liberal pursuits prompt and cordial.

In manner he was eminently courteous and affable. His kindly disposition found constant expression in a beaming smile, in tones, and words, and acts of cheerfulness, in unaffected sympathy with those around him. His purse, his advice, his encouraging voice were ever at the command of modest worth. His house was the stranger's home; his fireside the favored resort of friendship. Unostentatious hospitality was the presiding genius within his doors. Gloom and austerity were strangers to his countenance. He lived in an atmosphere of good-will; not a languid sentiment, still less an empty profession; but substantial effective good-will, manifested in deeds of beneficence. It might be said of him,

as it was said of his brother Amos, that "every day of his life was a blessing to some one."

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We should leave this hasty sketch too imperfect, if we forbore to add, that Mr. Lawrence was a religious man in principle and feeling, in heart and in life; a believer whose Christian profession was exemplified in all his conduct. He was a member of the Brattle street church, and a regular and devout attendant on the ministrations of the gospel. The rules of life which he deduced from the oracles of Divine Truth were seen in his performance of all the personal and social duties. In every relation to others, as a son, a brother, a husband, a father, his life, now brought to a close, prematurely for all but for himself, - may be safely held up as a model. Gentleness of demeanor, considerateness for the rights and feelings of others, equanimity under the trials of our imperfect nature, and the habit of finding his own happiness in the promotion of the happiness of others, spread sunshine and serenity in his domestic circle. The reality of his Faith and Hope in the promises of the gospel, shone brightly in the unmurmuring resignation with which he supported the weariness and sufferings of the last trying weeks of his life. Not a look of despondency or a word of complaint escaped him. He was ready for the great summons; and at the critical moment when the chances in favor and against his recovery seemed to be equally balanced, he rejoiced that a higher wisdom than his own was to decide the question.

As a member of the community, a citizen of influence, and a tried patriot, there are few among us who could not be better spared at a moment like the present, when firmness, experience, and wisdom are so much needed in our public counsels.

VEGETABLE AND MINERAL GOLD.*

MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

My worthy friend, Mr. Winthrop, who has just taken his seat, was good enough to remark that he was waiting with impatience for me to speak. Far different was my feeling while he was speaking.

I listened not only with patience, but with satisfaction and delight, as I am sure you all did. If he spoke of the embarrassment under which he rose to address such an assembly, an embarrassment which all, however accustomed to public speaking, could not but feel, how much greater must be my embarrassment! He had to contend only with the difficulties natural to the occasion, and with having to follow the eloquent gentleman from Philadelphia, (Mr. McMichael). I have to contend with all that difficulty, and also with the difficulty of following not only that gentleman, who delighted us all so much, but my eloquent friend who has just taken his seat.

And when two such gentlemen have passed over the ground, the one with his wide-sweeping reaper, and the other with his keen trenchant scythe, there is nothing left but a gleaning to their successor.

With respect to the kind manner, sir, in which you have been so good as to introduce my name to this company, it is plain that I can have nothing to respond, but to imitate the example of the worthy clergyman upon the Connecticut

* At the public dinner of the United States' Agricultural Society, in Boston, on the 4th of October, 1855, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder in the chair, in reply to a complimentary toast.

River, who, when some inquisitive friend, from a distant part of the country, asked him, somewhat indiscreetly, whether there was much true piety among his flock, said, "Nothing in that way to boast of."

Mr. President, if this were a geological instead of an agricultural society, and if it were your province not to dig the surface, but to bore into the depths of the earth, it would not be surprising if, in some of your excavations, you should strike upon such a fossil as myself. But when I look around. upon your exhibition- the straining course the crowded, bustling ring-the motion, the life, the fire- the immense crowds of ardent youth and emulous manhood, assembled from almost every part of the country, actors or spectators of the scene, I feel that it is hardly the place for quiet, oldfashioned folks, accustomed to quiet, old-fashioned ways. I feel somewhat like the Doge of Genoa, whom the imperious. mandate of Louis XIV. had compelled to come to Versailles, and who, after surveying and admiring its marvels, exclaimed, that he wondered at every thing he saw, and most of all at finding himself there.

Since, however, sir, with that delicate consideration toward your "elder brethren," which I so lately had occasion to acknowledge at Dorchester, you are willing to trust yourself by the side of such a specimen of paleontology as myself, I have much pleasure in assuring you that I have witnessed with the highest satisfaction the proof afforded by this grand exhibition, that the agriculture of our country, with all the interests connected with it, is in a state of active improvement. In all things, sir, though I approve a judicious conservatism, it is not merely for itself, but as the basis of a safe progress. I own there are some old things, both in nature, and art, and society, that I like for themselves. I all but worship the grand old hills, the old rivers that roll between them, and the fine old trees bending with the weight of centuries. I reverence an old homestead, an old burying-ground, the good men of olden times. I love old friends, good old books, and I don't absolutely dislike a drop of good old wine for the stomach's sake, provided it is taken from an original

package. But these tastes and sentiments are all consistent with, nay, in my judgment, they are favorable to, a genial growth, progression, and improvement, such as is rapidly taking place in the agriculture of the country. In a word, I have always been, and am now, for both stability and progress; learning, from a rather antiquated, but not yet wholly discredited, authority, "to prove all things, and to hold fast to that which is good." I know, sir, that the modern rule is "try all things, and hold fast to nothing." I believe I shall adhere to the old reading a little longer.

But, sir, to come to more practical, and you will probably think more appropriate topics, I will endeavor to show you that I am no enemy to new discoveries in agriculture or any thing else. So far from it, I am going to communicate to you a new discovery of my own, which, if I do not greatly overrate its importance, is as novel, as brilliant, and as auspicious of great results, as the celebrated discovery of Dr. Franklin; not the identity of the electric fluid and lightning, I don't refer to that; but his other famous discovery; that the sun rises several hours before noon; that he begins to shine as soon as he rises; and that the solar ray is a cheaper light for the inhabitants of large cities, than the candles, and oil, and wax tapers, which they are in the habit of preferring to it. I say, sir, my discovery is somewhat of the same kind; and I really think full as important. I have been upon the track of it for several years; ever since the glitter of a few metallic particles in the gravel washed out of Capt. Sutter's mill-race first led to the discovery of the gold diggings of California; which for some time past have been pouring into the country fifty or sixty millions of dollars annually.

My discovery, sir, is nothing short of this, that we have no need to go or send to California for gold, inasmuch as we have gold diggings on this side of the continent much more productive, and consequently much more valuable, than theirs. I do not of course refer to the mines of North Carolina or Georgia, which have been worked with some success for several years, but which, compared with those of California, are of no great moment. I refer to a much broader vein of aurif