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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/277

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SKETCH OF HENRY DARWIN ROGERS.
263

the following April, in order to resume his teaching of the summer classes of medical students in zoölogy. In May, word was received by his family that he was ill. Mrs. Rogers, with two of Prof. Rogers's brothers, took the first steamer to go to him, but when they reached Liverpool they learned that he had died several days before, of erysipelas.

The following notices of Prof. Rogers appeared in Philadelphia papers shortly after his death:

"It is difficult and perhaps impossible in the compass of a notice like the present to convey an adequate notion of the general attainments of Prof. Rogers, or of his peculiar views in geological science. As a geologist he might be termed a paroxysmist, although he preferred to give full weight to the operation of those ordinary causes which are gradually and silently working to bring about the changes everywhere recorded on the surface of the earth. But he believed that many of the more marked cosmical phenomena could not be sufficiently explained without a resort to the doctrine of catastrophes, and he deliberately though modestly announced his opinion in these respects. His acquirements in all departments of physics were considerable, to which he added the accomplishment of a large acquaintance with our own literature and that of other countries. Accustomed to consider closely the important social and ethical questions which engage the attention of enlightened men, he brought to their examination an accuracy and breadth of observation derived from his habits of scientific investigation.

"Prof. Rogers was a member of many learned societies both in Europe and America, and his scientific brethren will amply honor his memory. We may add that, though representing America in a foreign university for many years, his patriotism was fervent, and he was able to defend and maintain the cause of the Union at all times and under all circumstances."

Another paper said:

"As a lecturer Prof. Rogers's excellences will long live in the recollections of his Philadelphia auditors. His calm, impressive tone, thoroughly well sustained and occasionally rising with the swell of his subject to a high pitch of eloquence, his quiet, gentlemanly bearing, his thorough mastery of and deep interest in his subjects never failed to kindle even in the most indifferent listeners at least a temporary glow responsive to the feeling of his own breast. He has passed away, and left a name not soon to be forgotten by the cultivators of science, and a place among his friends and associates that can not without great difficulty be supplied."

"Of him whom we have lost," says the minute of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, "suffice it to record here in simplest and briefest phrase that he was a most accomplished