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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the stimulus which it afforded to similar enterprises in other States."

A few years later, in 1829, we find Dr. Caldwell purchasing of W. and S. Jones, mathematical instrument makers, London, the equipment for an electrical laboratory at the University of North Carolina. The first item on the bill, which lies before me as I write, is "a three-feet plate electrical machine with large branch conductor, supported by two glass pillars, double collectors, mounted in strong mahogany, varnished frame, with six brass legs fitted into brass sockets and screw nuts, negative brass conductor on claw-feet stand from the ground, with connecting sliding

Prof. Mitchell's Laboratory and Observatory.
After photograph by Collier Cobb.

tubes, brass bells and wires, etc., £45." The total amount of this first bill for electrical apparatus was £153 4s. 6d.

Dr. Caldwell published a Compendious System of Elementary Geometry, in seven books, to which an eighth is added, containing such other propositions as are elementary; subjoined is a Treatise on Plane Trigonometry. He was one of the earliest advocates in the South of popular education by the State.

Dr. Mitchell was the author of a Manual of Chemistry, a second edition of which was passing through the press at the time of his death; a Manual of Geology, illustrated by a geological map of North Carolina; a Manual of Natural History, and a Geography