"Whatever doubts may hang over all speculations respecting distant events, either of past or future time, we have reason to believe that our universe will ever exhibit great and useful operations throughout its extensive domains. From the ruins of some celestial bodies others will rise to act a part in the drama of the physical creation in future ages. Though nature's work may all decay, her laws remain the same, and numerous agencies, obedient to their control and aided by occasional interventions of creative power, must maintain the heavens forever in a harmonious condition and transform innumerable spheres into seats of light and intelligence. While the laws of nature have been thus widely ordained for such great ends, their simplicity renders them intelligible to the limited powers of the human mind, and the immense universe thus becomes a vast field of intellectual enjoyment for man."
TESTIMONY OF THE LATE DR. JOHN HANCOCK.
The late Dr. Hancock, in writing to Mrs. J. W. McLaughlin, stated that he attended institute lectures of Prof. Vaughn, making his acquaintance at a meeting of the Southwestern Ohio Normal Institute. The Professor was engaged to lecture on his favorite specialties, physical geography and astronomy. "It is my recollection," says the doctor, "that Prof. Vaughn was a graduate of Trinity Collage, Dublin. However that may be, there can be no doubt as to his wide and profound scholarship. He was not only deeply versed in the physical sciences, but was equally proficient in the classics and mathematics. It is said by competent judges that he read Greek and Latin as he would English, as though he thought in those languages, and he was one of the few Americans who read through Laplace's 'Mechanique Celeste.' He had a prodigious memory. At the Oxford Institute, to which I have referred, some dozen of the leading members, Prof. Vaughn among them, got up some literary games requiring wide reading and retentive memories for successful rivalry. In these games the Professor showed a wealth of reading and an ability to use it on the instant that I have never seen approached by any other scholar. It is needless to say that he was first in the game and the rest nowhere.
"Some ten years afterward, when connected with Nelson's Commercial College, I edited a little educational paper, the News and Educator, of which Mr. Nelson was proprietor. In this relation I came much more frequently in contact with Prof. Vaughn than I ever did before. To this paper he contributed a number of articles on scientific subjects, but, being printed in an obscure local paper, they attracted little attention."
REMINISCENCES OF MRS. STAMPS.
Mrs. Eliza Stamps, widow of the late Colonel Stamps, in giving her experience with the Professor, said: "He was a very industrious student, in his profound researches pursuing them to the exclusion of every thing else. He would frequently forget the demands of hunger and disregard the summons to his meals. As to his engaging in innocent amusements, he considered it a sacrifice of valuable time; yet, lest he should be accused of selfishness or wanting in social etiquette, he sometimes left his books to unite with the children in their games, and, diffident though he was, would occasionally take part in the dance.
"He enjoyed the Colonel's library, but soon exhausted its resources and those of the neighbors; so, to obtain a supply, he would go on foot to Cincinnati, one hundred miles distant, and return in the same manner, loaded with new books."
Throughout his after life he gave evidence of his great respect and affection for Colonel Stamps, his benefactor, and his family, and the young ladies and gentlemen who had been his pupils, who never ceased to venerate him for his learning, or to love and cherish his memory. Some such were among the mourners at his funeral.
REPUTATION IN ENGLAND.
The late Jacob Traber, one of the most intimate friends of the Professor, has written: "In the year 1858 I was in the office of John Sayre, bookseller, High Holborn, where I made the purchase of books that were yet in the hands of the printer. I gave my address and directions for shipping. When in the act of leaving the office I was accosted by an elderly gentleman who, with the apology, 'Beg pardon, I overheard you when you gave your address, Cincinnati, and desire to make inquiry about one of your distinguished citizens, Daniel Vaughn. Assuming that you know him, may I ask how long it is since you have seen him?' I replied that I had known the Professor some four years, and had met him but a few months ago. At that time I regarded the Professor as a mechanical genius of the speculative type, and so expressed myself. A quick rejoinder came in that broad and forcible accent of an Englishman: 'If you Cincinnati people vote Vaughn as a speculative mechanic, the ripest and profoundest mathematical scholar in England may be marked as his apprentice. You have a treasure in that man. Why, sir, we send him problems that fail to be mastered here, and speedily have them back not only with a solution, but with the demonstration.' The speaker proved to be one of the ablest scholars and scientists in Europe."