The most prominent trait of Dunbar's character was his love of nature. He admired her in all of her manifestations. She was attractive to him not only because of her beauty but because of her mysteries. With the spirit of a true philosopher, he ever inquired into the laws which regulated her actions. To paraphrase slightly his own language, he never observed any phenomena without endeavoring to ascertain the cause of them. He did not read at random, pages from the great book of nature, but read as continuously as circumstances would permit. He read it in the howling wind, the turbid current, the trembling needle, the growing plant, the blazing comet, the silent stone, the lifeless fossil. He read it critically; he read it appreciatively. That he often raised his eyes from the well-conned pages of this great book to fix them on the omniscient Author himself is shown in more than one passage from his writings. The career of this great pioneer scientist of Mississippi ended in the month of October, 1810. Although he was then in his sixty-first year, his work was incomplete and his plans but partially executed. In the words of Pliny, "The hand of death is ... too severe, and too sudden, when it falls upon such as are employed in some immortal work. The sons of sensuality, who have no other views beyond the present hour, terminate with each day the whole purpose of their lives; but those who look forward to posterity, and endeavor to extend their memories to future generations by useful labors:--to such death is always immature, as it still snatches them from amidst some unfinished design." The permanent results of Dunbar's life-work may be summarized as follows: 1. He helped to locate and to survey part of the present boundary line between Mississippi and Louisiana. 2. He first directed the attention of the world to the manufacture of cotton-seed oil. 3. He invented the screw press for packing cotton, and helped to perfect the process of packing it in square bales. 4. He made the first accurate meteorological observations in the valley of the Mississippi. 5. He made a critical scientific study of the Mississippi River and its Delta. 6. He made important contributions to geographical knowledge, by determining the latitude and the longitude of many places. 7. He was the first to give a scientific account of the Hot Springs and an analysis of its water. FOOTNOTES: [21] The writer acknowledges, with pleasure, the valuable assistance rendered him by Major William Dunbar Jenkins, of Natchez, Miss., great-grandson of Sir William Dunbar.