Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/922

840 small doses of medicine. He was, however, in the main, an observing and intelligent practitioner, and was remarkably assiduous in his attentions and soothing in his behavior to his patients.

"In figure he was tall and exceedingly well formed; in middle life he might be considered as having been handsome. His physiognomy was strongly expressive of intelligence, and his eye was remarkably fine and penetrating.

"In temperament he was irritable and even choleric. His spirits were irregular, his manners consequently variable, impetuous, vehement. These repeated vacillations between equanimity and depression were generally owing to the sudden and repeated attacks of his continual earthly companion—irregular gout.

"In familiar conversation he was often elegant, remarkably facetious, but never witty.

"As a parent he was kind, tender, and indulgent to a fault.

"He possessed some high virtues; among the most elevated of them was his unaffected love of country. Indeed, his patriotic feelings were not only strong, but frequently expressed with unreserved warmth."

A sketch of Barton, extracted from that by his nephew, was published in The Portfolio for April, 1816 (Philadelphia), and in an editorial note prefixed to it occurs this statement: "Our estimate, too, of the character of the deceased is somewhat different from that which has been formed by the author of this 'Sketch.' Dr. Barton was a very industrious man in the pursuit of science, and though we do not think that he has contributed much to enlarge its bounds, we are willing to believe that his collections will facilitate the labors of the student, to whom he has left a laudable example of active diligence and unwearied perseverance."

Dr. Barton was in correspondence with many prominent naturalists and physicians both at home and abroad. He established an enviable foreign reputation, as is attested by his membership in the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow, the Linnæan Society of London, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Danish Royal Society of Sciences, and the Royal Danish Medical Society.

of travel as a means of learning, and of the great expansion that has been given to it of late years, Dr. B. W. Richardson calls such a mode one in which the surface of the earth becomes a living map, and the spoken languages the living grammars a mode that must extend day by day as the mind yearns for more knowledge and the power that springs from it. No end is visible to him of the line of travel now inaugurated, and he has visions of university ships manned and supplied, instead of guns and fighting men, with professors, laboratories, observatories, and libraries, and in which voyages of research shall be made by all classes round the world.