The University of Cambridge conferred on him the degree of L.L. D., and Emperor of France invited him to the superintendency of the Imperial Observatory, at Paris. He patriotically preferred to accept the chair of physics at the Virginia Military Institute.
While here he prepared his latest work, “The Physical Survey of Virginia.”
His remains rest beneath a modest monument of native James River granite, in Hollywood, Virginia’s beautiful city of the dead.
When he died the Commander of Virginia Military Institute thought it but just and proper that every power in the world should be informed, and telegrams were sent. All were responded to in the most appropriate manner, except one—that of the United States. Not one word from our then President U. S. Grant!
As his body lay in state at Lexington it was literally covered from throat to waist with decorations, some of them the richest and most valuable jewels, the gifts of the crowned heads of the earth.
Then to the man who first gave a complete description of the Gulf stream, who first marked out the specific routes to be followed in crossing the Atlantic, who first instituted the system of deep sea sounding, who first suggested the establishment of a telegraphic communication between the continents by cable, on the bed of the ocean, and who indicated the line along which the existing cable was laid, who caused the erection of our naval academy—to this great man the D. A. R. of America are striving to induce Congress to build a suitable monument. And what place could be more appropriate than Hampton Roads, and what time better than to have it ready before the greatest naval display the world has ever seen, which is arranged to come off during the Jamestown exhibition in 1907.
Isn’t it a great mistake that America does not see fit to honor her great ones, and if she does not, why cannot Virginia and Tennessee join hands and do honor to whom honor is due?
The voice which lives is the one which moulds the souls of men.